The Lost Child of Thanos
by WritingEqualsEscape
Summary: One year ago, Thanos lost one of his greatest assets, Rose Waters, due to a catastrophic mission gone wrong. However, when the fog clears and Rose Waters proves to be alive, the once simple conquest that Thanos had planned turns fuzzy as everyone on the Avengers and Thanos' side alike desperately try to figure out whose side Rose Waters' is truly on...
1. Chapter 1

**Arrival**

The girl appeared in the middle of the road of New York City.

To the driver who saw it happen, he would later describe that it was as if she had popped out of nowhere and that, frankly, he didn't blame himself, after all, it was night time and a thunderstorm was brewing along the skyline, making it hard to see to begin with. However, despite the fact that it was dark, the driver swore that he was careful and alert, or at least he thought he was before the girl appeared by slamming into the hood of his car, making him immediately slam on the brakes.

When asked to describe the girl, the man had a simple response, mostly because he wasn't able to really analyze her features other than the fact that she had vibrant, long, lightening blond hair, pale skin, and icy blue eyes that looked as if they had the same pigment as most blue highlighters. Maybe it was the headlights, but the man swore that the girl was so pale that he almost thought that she was a ghost. She was wearing something that greatly contrasted her fair look, something that looked like a black bomber jacket with the hood tightly wrapped around her head, black tights, and a dark green shirt that covered her slim build.

However, when the man hastily got out of his vehicle to apologize to the girl and beg her not to sue him, with rain pouring over every inch of his once dry self, it was only to notice that not see a single figure in his path, other than a bunch of cars that sped past him in the blaring rain, spitting a combination of mud and water over him.

The man's first thought was that he was hallucinating, until he realized that that was impossible. There was an unmistakable dent in front of his car, which meant that someone, or something, must've caused it. The driver would later spend the next few precious minutes of his life looking for the girl, minutes wasted when he realized that she seemed to have almost disappeared.

The driver would later on send his client to his large home in New York City, who was quite confused onto the situation that had taken place. Despite the constant reassurences that the driver would take care of everything legally, Tony Stark was too intrigued in the mystery. The billionaire had, indeed, seen the girl with his own two eyes. Later that night when he rolled out of bed after sleep seemed impossible, he even checked the cameras that he had. Sure enough, when he replayed the moment, there was that same, strange girl with lightening blond hair, her side facing the car as it screeched to a halt. She would turn her head calmly, the nearby lampposts illuminating her pale, lightly freckled face and brilliant blue eyes. Her face was young, a teenager perhaps, and her once baggy clothing was now drenched in the cold rain, which clung to her thin build. Then, out of nowhere, she was gone, like a ghost. The thought of the mysterious girl would be only one of the many things that bugged Stark that night.

What the driver or billionaire didn't know, however, was the fact that the girl was long gone that place the moment she had stepped foot on the planet. She had disappeared away from the car and the busy streets into a nearby alleyway, where she quickly marched into the small crowd, instantly fitting it. Everyone out tonight was in a rush to get home, their outfits soaked head to toe in a thin layer of water.

The girl practically ran through the streets, her steps quick and full of purpose as she ran through her plan in her mind. She had seen these very streets so many times, a little too many times to be honest, but never once did she see them in person. She always saw pictures however, and frankly, the pictures were enough to lead her to large, yet old building that stood grandly near the outskirts of the city.

The teenager marched up the steps, every step she took soaked with water which squeaked out of her boots. When she at long last reached the front door, she banged on it rather harshly, a little desperate to get out of her present situation. She didn't have to knock twice either, since the moment after she knocked, the door opened, just a crack.

"Hello?" a voice responded, revealing a round face of Asian complexity. A male.

"Hello." The girl replied, her voice delicate as she raised an eyebrow. "May I please come in?"

"Depends on who's asking." His voice was sharp, not a hint of exhaustion evident in it, but his question was enough to make the girl cross her arms.

"The person who's asking is Rose Waters." Spoke Rose Waters as she wiped a few strands of wet, almost white hair behind her ear.

"And why are you here, Rose Waters?" The man responded. The girl's face continued to remain emotionless as she replied.

"I'm here for the Time Stone, you might not know, but it's in grave danger."

* * *

"Tea?" a man in a red cloak questioned. He didn't even wait for a response as a kettle levitated and poured hot tea into a teacup, which landed delicately in Rose Water's hands.

"Why thank you." The girl politely spoke, but didn't drink a sip as she held the tea cup delicately in her palm. The man paid no attention to her actions as he poured himself his own cup.

"So…" The man spoke as he sat down in a comfortable red velvet chair near the girl, his posture perfect. "I suppose that introductions need to be made. Dr. Strange."

"How peculiar." Rose Waters responded. "Rose Waters."

"Did you just make that up?" Strange questioned, a small smile on his face, but Rose Waters made no attempt to return the facial expression.

"I was about to ask the same of you." She responded rather quickly as Dr. Strange took a long sip of his tea before he struck the matter at hand.

"How do you know about the Time Stone?" He immediately inquired, his eyes admiring the way that his hands quiver and shook as Rose Waters simply shrugged.

"I know that it's been in your organization's… grasps for the past millennium or so. I also know that it's been safe with you during that time as well-"

"-and it will stay safe with us." Strange replied as he took a breath from sipping his tear before he resumed catering to his drink, which seemed to never run out.

"That's the problem, Doctor." Rose Waters said simply and glanced back at Dr. Strange, this time with a death stare. "It's not going to stay safe with you."

"And why do you say that?"

"That's because the end has begun." Rose whispered, her eyes looking into the bottomless cup of tea in her hands. Her eyes shot back up to Strange, this time with emotion in them. The emotion of fear. "Thanos has begun his conquest."

"Thanos-" Dr. Strange began, his voice confused as Rose stood up, instantly making Strange stand up as well to match her.

"Five days ago, Thanos obliterated the planet of Xandar." Rose whispered, her voice small. "He went there to steal the Power stone."

"The Power stone…" Strange mumbled underneath his breath as his eyes flashed back up at Rose. "That's impossible, not a single being should be able to withstand it's power-"

"Well it is possible!" Rose snapped and took a step closer to Strange. "It's possible because Thanos has a gauntlet. He has a gauntlet that's capable to wielding all six infinity stones, and that's his goal! To get rid of half the life in the universe to restore… restore balance to the universe."

Nearing the end of Rose's speech, her voice turns oddly small, as if she's afraid to speak more of her mind as she takes in a soft breath and calms herself as Strange simply raises an eyebrow.

"How will killing-"

"I don't know!" Rose exclaims. "He's a Mad Titan! It's just what he does! Bottom line, Doctor, Thanos is coming and it's taken me countless amounts of hours to figure out where the Time Stone is, not to mention figure the hell out how to get here!"

"I'm sorry that you have wasted your time." Strange said, his voice simple as he immediately teleported them out of the sitting room back to the front door of the home. It was a feeling that Rose was oddly familiar with. "But the Time Stone is completely safe with me."

"No, it isn't." Rose replied, her spit landing on the Doctor's face as she took a step forward. "That stone is as safe with you the same way that an egg is as safe from being cracked."

"Just cushion the egg." Strange mumbled underneath his breath as Rose narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh, you think that this is just some sort of joke, Stonekeeper?" Rose hissed at him. "That I'm making up some sort of… of tall tale to get your attention?"

"No, actually, I believe that this is quite serious, and I thank you for taking the time out of your day to warn us, but little girl, trust me, the stone is safe with me."

"I'm not a little girl." Rose whispered, her voice harsh. "And that stone is anything but safe with you, so that is why I need you to give me the stone so I can bring it somewhere where it can be safe."

Strange stifled a laugh as he hitched a smile. "I'm sorry, but did you just say that _I_ needed to give _you_ the Time stone? Well, first of all, darling, I really wish I could, but I swore an oath to protect this stone at all costs. Second of all, you really don't seem like you can really care for yourself, much less this stone." He gestured to her outfit which immediately filled Rose's body with a handful of rage.

With burning eyes, Rose takes another step towards the Doctor and leans into his face, her eyes wide and wild as she bore her teeth at him before she flicked her wrist. A surprisingly light weight landed in it as Doctor Stephen Strange flickered his eyes to it only to almost be blinded by it's bright blue brilliance. The Tesseract.

"How-" Strange begins, a little confused when Rose cuts him off by twirling her wrist, making the cube disappear.

"You aren't the only one with some magic tricks." Rose hisses. "I had to ask a few of my… connections, but I have the Space stone and I need the Time stone. Now." She lets out a heave before shaking her head before shifting her tone of voice into a small, pleading one. "Please, you don't understand what's at stake."

"No, obviously, you don't know what's at stake." Strange muttered underneath his breath at her as he took a step closer to the young girl who barely stood at his ear. "So let's say I give you the Time stone. Then what? You hide it somewhere with the Tesseract so it can be a nice gift for this… this Thanos fella to get not just one infinity stone, but two?"

"You give me the Time Stone so you can guarantee that this planet won't be destroyed like countless others, Strange. So your race won't get sliced in half." Rose's eyes flicker to the man's necklace, where she can just feel another stone residing in. "You give me the Time Stone right now, or I will not hesitate to take it by force."

"How? By screaming and whining for it like a little girl?" Strange questioned while arching an eyebrow at the youngster, who simply returned with a death stare.

Then, before the man could make another move, the girl was slamming her elbow into his ribcage, instantly knocking him backwards. But before he could fly to the ground however, the girl grabbed ahold of his necklace, only to have it's details be practically burned into her skin, immediately making her remove her hold from it, her eyes wide in the familiar feeling of pain.

Strange's cape easily managed to steady the man back to his feet as he let out a soft chuckle at the girl's useless attempt to get the Time Stone.

"Listen, I think you have… good intentions, but the safest place for the Time stone is, and has always been, with us."

"That's what the people on Xandar thought." Rose replied, her voice sharp enough to cut through steel. "And look what happened to them."

"But we aren't Xandar, are we?" Strange questions back as Rose suddenly takes a step back towards the door, her eyes still narrowed at the man.

"No, you aren't." She replied, her voice lighter as she opened the door to take a step into the rain. But before she could be engulfed in the darkness, she continued.

"You're even weaker."

* * *

 **A/N: I'm so happy to start this new fanfic staring Rose Waters, an original character of mine. I hope you all like this new, extremely different, retelling of Infinity War as much as I do! Please leave your thoughts in the reviews!**

 **~Emily**


	2. Chapter 2

**Strange Things**

Strange kept close tabs on Rose Waters, more onto the fact that she was an alien intruder rather than because she was actually a threat. Sure, she knew about the Time stone and had the Tesseract, but that didn't instantly make her a threat. Besides, if he kept a close eye on her without her knowing, he might see if anything truly deadly might occur, like the Thanos fellow that she had talked about.

It wasn't very hard to lose track of her, since she traveled around on foot, it was was practically impossible to lose her. She spent the rest of the night wandering around the city, occasionally walking into coffee shop and would walk out with a muffin, despite the fact that he didn't really see her paying for anything. Strange suspected that that meant that she was quite an experienced sorcerer, but she obviously didn't use the mystic arts, which made Strange wonder how exactly she could do what she did.

Despite the pouring rain outside, Rose Waters simply spent her time wandering the city while getting soaked head to toe, as if she was looking for something. It was actually quite boring watching her, and Strange found himself becoming more sleep deprived by the second. Against his will, he eventually fell asleep, it had been a long day after all. When he woke up an hour later, he justified his action by the fact that she was probably just hired by some enemies of the mystic arts to attempt to persuade Strange to give up the Time stone, but... but the problem was that even if she was, her plan to do was quite bad.

The only thing that frightened Strange was the Tesseract, but to Strange's extent of knowledge on the stones, the Tesseract she showed could have the potential to be a fake. Wasn't it safely tucked away in... in Asgard, correct? The idea of it being a fake wasn't outrageous in the very least, after all, he didn't exactly examine it properly.

When Doctor Stephen Strange woke up and got himself composed once again, he immediately attempted to monitor the girl once more, only to realize that he couldn't quite find her. Confused, Strange immediately tried to look through every little crevice and alleyway that made of New York City, but it was almost as if she had disappeared off the face of the Earth. But that was impossible, Wong would've mentioned if anything had entered the atmosphere or exited it... And the girl, if she was who she said she was, how did she arrive to Earth to begin with? Besides, it's only been an hour. Strange searched for the girl for hours, desperate to find her again, only to find nothing.

"Rose Waters…" Strange hissed as he pulled at his graying hair. "Where are you?"

* * *

Rose Waters was in front of a old, rattled down motel. It wasn't exactly the best quality in the very least, but it had a ceiling and really, that was all one could really ask, or at least, one with as low standards as her own. However, she wasn't there for the motel, she was there for the large forest beside it.

The forest's dirt was rather dry and crumpled up, dry leaves casually spread across the ground, so with every step Rose Waters took, the leaves would make a crinkling sound against her foot. It wasn't the best environment she had for being all stealthy, but Rose made do with what she had as she expertly led herself where she could... could just feel that another stone lied...

"I suggest that you turn around." The voice was gruff and serious, as well as deep. Rose Waters paid no attention to it and didn't even bother to turn around to see who belonged of the voice was as she gave him a simple reply.

"No thank you." She stated, her voice strong and directive, as she took another step before a lady with short, bright blond hair like her's appeared in front of her. She wore a simple black outfit and two sticks were in her hands.

"Turn around. Now." She hissed as the person behind her grabbed her arms to pin them behind her back. She noticed that his chin was practically resting on her head as he whispered into her ear. Once again, she didn't make a move.

"Which government are you with? American? Russian? Germa-"

"Actually, I'm soloing it today." Rose Waters replied rather simply as the blond haired lady walked up to her and narrowed her eyes at the young girl as she continued. "I was actually interested in seeing something in your possession. It's bright yellow and very powerful. The.. The Mind Stone, correct?"

The lady in front of her didn't even flinch as the grip around Rose Waters arms tightened. "We don't have it." The lady stated without blinking as Rose Waters returned her cold stare.

"Liar." Rose stated and nodded her head vaguely in the direction she was walking. "In fact, I believe that it's right over there."

Once again the grip on Rose's arms becomes even tighter, instantly making the lady in front her shift gazes to the man behind her. "Easy there, Cap, she's just some kid." At her words, the grip on her arms softened, but not by much.

"How do you know?" a gruff voice mumbled, practically into Rose's ear as Rose only shrugged.

"I call it a talent." She replied and gave them both a small smile. "Also, thank you for clarifying where the Mind stone is."

On that note, Rose focused on a spot by the trees, her eyes like razors as she memorized every little detail. Then, before one could blink, she had teleported there, her entire body landing softly on the crinkling leaves.

Unfortunately for Steve Rogers, he was brought with her due to his stone cold grip on her arms. The fact that the girl just... just teleported immediately made the Captain feel quite uncomfortable and a little dizzy, instantly his grip on her arms loosening as Rose easily slithers from his grip and attempted to kick him in the chest. However, Steve easily catched her leg as he spoke, still not completely composed. He knew that he should be better at expecting the unexpected, but at the moment, he kind of felt like he was going to throw up.

"You can teleport." He whispered as Rose smiled.

"You noticed." She replied as she used her held foot and kicked off of the Captain, her bright blue eyes watching the lady with blond hair sprint towards the two before she glanced over her shoulder and focused on a spot. Then, before she knew it, she was there, just around five hundred meters away from the two and quickly began to run at a speed that could rival and beat olympic athletes. It didn't help the others that she would occasionally teleport a few hundred meters farther, giving her quite a large head start.

It wasn't long before she noticed a rather large jet hiding in the midst of the woods. However, the only problem was that as she began to approach it, a man with strange, robotic wings walked out of it, his hands carrying two guns.

"I know I shouldn't shoot at kids, but this is the exception." He spoke before he let loose a few rounds. But before a a single bullet could even graze her skin, Rose blinked immedaitely appeared behind him, the bullets falling into various trees. Falcon paused for half a second, he too being taken back by what the girl could do, which was more than enough time for Rose to kick at his shin and push him down the steps as she walked into the ship.

It was smaller than it looked on the inside and contained two beings, both of which stood up at her precense. One had red, almost orange hair, and pale skin, but Rose's attention was on the android beside her. Or, more exactly, on the stone on his forehead.

"Hello." Rose spoke and gave the two a sweet grin. "I would like to ask you to let me have possession of the Mind stone."

The girl with orange hair had red magic floating around her fingertips as her eyes stared darkly at Rose. "Get the hell out." she responded as Rose tilted her head at her.

"I'm afraid that it's not a request, darling." Rose responded when she heard the sound of a bullet getting released from a chamber. She instantly turned her head to notice Falcon was beginning to fiercely shoot at her and took a sharp step to the side before lifting up one of her hands. Her eyes took a quick mental shot of the man and before she knew it, he was elsewhere, in the middle of the woods to be exact.

The amount of mental power that it took to transfer the man away was enough to make Rose feel rather dizzy and weak, already knowing that she probably exerted herself for more than enough today. It was simple to teleport herself, and even for herself and another person as long as she touched them. But teleporting someone with just a quick snapshot of their body was something that just drained her. She turned gracefully back at the strange couple, trying to not look as tired as she truly was, the girl waving red mist around her hands giving her a death stare.

"What did you do to him?!" She hissed and before Rose knew it, she was being pinned down against the wall with the red magic, her limbs not being quite able to move. "ANSWER ME!" She screamed in Rose's face as she took in a sharp breath and before she knew it, Rose was next to the strange android, her stomach clenching as she glared at the robot.

"Let's do away with this, shall we?" She muttered underneath her breath. However, before she was able to even touch the machine, a sudden pain attacked the back of her skull, a punch, which instantly made her stumble backwards and against the wall. Her eyes fluttered from the robot to the man and women in front of her, the people who she had encountered outside.

"We don't want to hurt you, but we will if we have to." The lady muttered underneath her breath, her entire body looming over the small girl's one as Rose simply gave both of them a timid smile.

"You'll thank me later." She promised and before anyone could stop her, she grabbed the android's leg. Then, just like that, she and Vision vanished from thin air, leaving the broken Avengers standing on the Quinjet wondering what the absolute hell just happened.

* * *

The girl and the android reappeared in a small metal room.

The first thing that the girl did when she had repositioned herself was lean over to the side and throw up, her head much too dizzy and her body too powerless to stop the vomit. Once she was done, she stumbled over to her bed and sat down as the android desperately tried to compose himself, his eyes glaring at his unfamiliar surroundings before he spoke.

"Where are we?" he whispered. For some reason, the girl didn't seem nearly as frightening as others would think. She looked rather young and innocent, her blue eyes something that he could've sworn that he saw before, he just didn't know where. The bright blue was unnaturally strong, something that must've been made by some sort of a machine.

"Home." She replied as she grabbed a bag of what seemed to be food and stuffed her mouth with it. She was completely out of energy and didn't exactly feel like entertaining the machine more. When the robot raised his eyebrows, a universal sign that he needed more information, the girl simply sighed and took a sip of her nearby beverage. "It's one of those asteroids on the asteroid belt that are inbetween Mars and Jupiter." Her voice turned small as she spoke the last part underneath her breath. "An old abandoned base of the Nova Corps."

The last part wasn't entirely true. While the Nova Corps did own the base, it wasn't old nor abandoned. Rose Waters had taken over the base and made it her own a year ago, killing anyone who would come even remotely close to taking it back, until, eventually, everyone just forgot about it. After all, the base wasn't so incredibly important, it wasn't like it held any extremely useful information or weapons. It was mostly empty space that cost a lot of money to maintain. In a way, the Nova Corps were almost happy that Rose Waters had lifted the burden of the small base off of their chests.

"Oh, space, fun." Vision mumbled underneath her breath and let out a soft exhale before he put on a fierce expression and spoke. For some strange reason, being so fierce didn't come naturally to Vision, it was as if he felt that he should be gentler with the girl. No... No, he didn't think that, the stone on his forehead thought that. "I will ask you this once, and once alone…"

"Rose Waters."

"Rose Waters." Vision hissed, trying his best to be intimidating as the stone practically whined at him to be more gentler to the child. "Send me back to Earth immediately or else-"

Before Vision could go through on his threat, Rose made a dagger appear into her hand and immediately stabbed the machine in the chest before he had the time to phase through. He let out a groan when he realized, to his great dismay, that somehow, the dagger or the girl was strong enough to break through his vibranium exterior. He wanted to scream at the stone lodged in his forehead, this is what he gets for listening to it. He let out a harsh exhale as he looked from side to side and he forced the stone to attack, letting out a ripple of power through the air.

It actually almost would've hit Rose if Vision hadn't moved ever so lightly to the left, missing her head by a hair so that it would instead hit the wall, instantly making the oxygen get sucked out of the room.

Rose widened her eyes at the hole and with a kick of her leg, the table in the corner of the room went flying to the hole, blocking it, but it was obvious to the naked eye that it wouldn't stay like that for long.

Rose let out a grunt and reluctantly tackled Vision into another room, where the door immediately shut, locking in the rest of the oxygen as Rose spotted an item in the corner of the room. With a blink, the item was in her hand and she placed it on the machine's crippled body.

"This is for the best." She hissed, but before she could press the button, Vision threw an unexpected punch at her head. Rose let out a groan as she got knocked backwards as Vision slowly stood up in a fighting pose, the Infinity Stone gleaming on his forehead.

"Let's see-" He starts, but before he can continue, Rose was already scooping up the item from on the ground and throws it at the machine. Vision immediately blocked his face where it was suppose to land, so it instead fell on his arm.

With a simple blink, Rose appeared in front of him and pressed the bright yellow button of the electro-magnetic pulse creator, instantly making Vision jolt before powering off, electricity sucked out of his body. His once colourful costume full of hope becomes eerily dark as Rose took a step back, her back meeting the wall as she slid down to meet the ground.

It's been a long day. Two infinity stones down, four to go.

* * *

 **A/N: What's your opinion on Rose so far? Whose side do you think that she's on? Let me know in your reviews! Also, I apologize in advance if there's any weird spelling/grammar mistakes...**

 **Love you all,**

 **~Emily**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Iron Cloak**

After spending the past two hours looking for the girl, Strange finally gave up and decided to approach the situation in a different approach. He needed to look at where the girl went, so he had to figure out where she's been... reversing time would probably tear the space time continum so that wasn't an option, which meant that he would have to find her through… through cameras of some sort. The idea was logical enough, cameras were everything in the city, he just needed to get access to not just a couple of them, but all of them…

"Tony Stark!" A voice shouted from a nearby portal that quickly opened up. Within a moment, the billionaire, wearing a 'Kiss The Chef' apron, turned around and stared at the magician, but to be completely honest, he wasn't really surprised in the very least. More like annoyed at what was happening.

"Excuse me?" Stark replied, taking a few intimidating steps towards the man in the red cloak. He turns to look behind him, at Pepper and Happy who were casually dining with him along the balcony of the restaurant he had reserved. And when he meant restaurant, he meant the entire restaurant.

However, despite the fact that the chefs would've fought each other tooth and nail to serve the wealthy trio, Stark insisted on using the outdoor grill by himself. At least ten staff waited on standby, as if the genius would need any help operating the grill, when Strange popped up.

"I need your help." Strange continued as Tony widened his arms, a grilling spatula in his hand that reeked of coal. Happy and Pepper simply stared at the man in disbelief at what the hell was happening before their own eyes.

"No, no, no, _I_ happen to be in the middle of something over here." Tony replied, a look of pure disbelief on his face that someone would intrude his privacy just like that, as he took a few more steps to meet the sorcerer face to face, his voice rather aggressive as he continued. "So unless the universe is at stake, I want you to haul your magical ass off of my balcony and leave."

Stephen Strange only gave Tony a simple look, the type of look that a disapproving parent gives to their child. In response, Tony simply stared at him for half a second before shutting his eyes, taking off his glasses, and rubbing at them. "Oh, please don't tell me it's the end of the world, I just wanted a little day ou-"

"It's not the end of the world." Strange stated as Tony lifted his head and nodded.

"Great, leave." He replied and was about to shove the magician back into his portal when Strange held up a finger.

"-but it could be." He continued as Tony rolled his eyes.

"Leave."

"Look, I don't mean to interrupt your… little brunch party." Strange looked over at the still stunned people trying to eat dinner before giving Pepper a slight wave. "Congrats on the engagement by the way, but I don't need you."

"Oh yeah, and what do you need you? Magic-in-a-bottle?" Tony taunted as Strange sighed.

"I need your connections, your surveillance footage to be exact." When Tony begins to cross his arms, Strange took that as a reason to continue. He also decided to play nice, after all, he was the one asking _him_ for a favor. "I need to find a girl who went missing a few hours ago."

"So you interrupt my day, _my personal life,_ so I can help you find a _girl?_ " Tony asks in disbelief as Strange opens his mouth to explain when Tony made a small salute with his hands. On his command, three buff men immediately came onto the balcony and stalked towards the magician. All of their bodies almost instantly took up all of the room on the balcony. "Oh for God's sake… all three of you don't need to come…" Tony mumbled underneath his breath as two quickly left back into the restaurant.

The one other guard stalked towards Strange, who seemed unphased by his rather intimidating prescence and with a quick swipe of his hand, the man was being pinned against the wall with his cape. Strange casually walked towards Tony as he let out a scream of outburst when his patties seemed to be getting burnt on the grill.

"Son of a…" Tony mumbled underneath his breath as he somehow conjured some sort of machinery from his ark reactor, which made a fire extinguisher. Once the fire was out there, he immediately aimed it at Strange, who, with a few waves of a hand, sent all of the smoke away.

However, Tony only gave him his own look of disapproval at his actions before he leaned against the railing of the balcony, admiring the view of the city as he spoke up. "You know, that was vegetarian meat. It was special, handmade and shipped straight from probably the vegetarian capital of the world. I'm going to need you to pay for that."

"Who knew billionaires could be so cheap." Strange mumbled underneath his breath as he opened a portal and pulled out a piece of paper before he popped it in front of Stark's face before he could make another quick quip. "This is the girl we're looking for. Please." He wanted to punch himself for having to say please to such a douchebag. "She's… not from here."

Before Strange can finish his last sentence, the paper is snatched out of his hand and into Tony's as he stares wide eyed at the girl who sat casually in a very fancy red velvet chair. She was unmistakable for the girl he had seem the night prior. Now that he could see her in HD though, rather than the rather dim quality his cameras could provide, he could really put two and two together.

Her white-blond hair flowed to her waist, some of it folded into an intricate braid while others just stood in various waves. Her skin was pale, even with the warm, glowing lights raining upon it. However, her brilliant blue eyes were still just as unforgettable as the ones he had seen just last night.

"You know her." Strange said simply, more of a fact than a question that Stark blankly ignores.

"What do you mean, she's not from here?" Stark questioned as he looked up to Strange. "What? Is she from Canada? Europe?"

"I'm talking about another solar system, asshole." Strange replied, finally bringing out his snarky attitude once he figured Stark was on board. "She came to me yesterday for the Time Stone and when I refused, she left."

"She came for you for a rock?"

" _The Time Stone._ Similar to the Mind Stone and the Tesseract, which she actually has-"

"Wait, the stone or the cube?"

"It's called the _Tesseract._ And she has it. I tried to look for her for the past two hours, but no dice."

"Why did you let her leave?"

"I was stalking her to see who she worked for-"

"And you lost her."

"I fell asleep."

"Of course you did."

"We're all human, Stark."

On that note, Stark lets out a puff of his cheeks as he wiggled a finger at the strange man's face, his hand delicately folding the paper of the girl before he spoke.

"Listen, I'll help you on two conditions."

"Alright."

"One, you come back after this lunch. We're busy here."

"Done."

"And two, you stop strangling Bill's face with your cloak."

With a simple snap his fingers, the cloak returns back on Strange's shoulders as the guard, Bill he presumed, gasped for air, his face red and full of fear as Strange nodded.

"And done." On that note, Strange casually walked backwards until he was in the safety of the portal and practically saluted Tony. "Nice doing business with you, Stark."

And the portal closed.

"Oh, thank God, I though he would never leave." Happy muttered underneath his breath as Tony let out a soft exhale and walked back to his fiancée, his hand engulfing her own as he gave her a small smile.

"Sorry for ruining lunch…" Tony stated as he began to apologize before Pepper shushed him.

"No, no, no, that… off brand Harry Potter dude did." She replied as a small smile appeared on Tony's face as he nodded and waved over at the chefs on standby. Almost immediately, the door was shoved open and chefs trampled over one another until one took the spotlight, his face full of glee as Tony spoke.

"More burgers please." He said simply as he looked back at Pepper once he heard the not-made-of-meat-burgers sizzle on the grill. He wiped a bit of ginger hair from her face before he began.

"Listen I'll make it up to you. Tomorrow, we're going to have the most extravagant dinner in the world, I'm thinking of an 8:30 res…"

* * *

"I saw her before." Tony stated as he opened up a search through all security cameras he could gain access to, looking through them all for the girl's face. Strange was beside him, casually watching all of the technology work it's own kind of magic as he continued. "Except she didn't really come to me. She kind of hit my car."

When Strange doesn't acknowledge Tony's joke, it only seems to motivate him to keep going. "Yeah, her being some extra-terrestrial being kind of explains why she was able to make such a dent in my car. When we find her, I'm definitely filing for property damage."

"Well, you did hit _her_ with your car."

"I have the best lawyers in the world, dude, and she's some alien. I can make it work." The machine beeped and Tony smiled. "Looked like we found a match." In the video they found, it was of a street corner of her walking into a bakery, where it logged into the bakery's footage. The girl stood there, quickly embracing it's warmth, and then her hands flicked. Before his eyes, a muffin appeared in her hand, something almost unrecognizable in the grainy footage.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y, please replay the last ten seconds." Stark stated and the machine did as it was told. They saw it replay when Stark tapped the screen and pointed to the screen where the muffins were on display. "Ah-ha!" He rewinded the moment milliseconds before the muffin appeared in the girl's hand. "Watch that muffin."

He let it play and sure enough, one of the muffin that was on display disappeared and was in the girl's hand.

"How did she do that?" Tony questioned as Strange only gave him a shrug as they continued to run the footage.

She didn't do anything very interesting after that, which made Tony speed up the footage ten-fold. In the meantime, he tried to make some conversation with the Sorcerer Supreme.

"So… What do you do for a living?" Tony questioned and made a few hand gestures. "Wait, wait, wait, lettme guess…" Tony cleared his throat and did his best to make his voice deeper to match Strange's tone. " _I know your card! It's an ace of spades! Wait, there's a coin behind your ear! See this ring… and now it's gone!"_

"It's called protecting your reali-" Strange began, but before he was able to finish his iconic line, F.R.I.D.A.Y spoke up.

"Sir, we're found an error."

Almost immediately, Tony's focus slammed back to the machinery as he spoke up. "What kind of error?"

"The girl-"

"Her name is Rose Waters." Strange spoke up, interrupting the machine. "At least that's what she told me."

"-has… disappeared."

"Rewind." Tony stated and the AI did until the girl popped back into view. "Play."

The quality was horrible, and to make matters worse, it was raining. Still, somehow, both of the men could make out the same vibrant, lightening blond hair and pale skin. She continued to walk down the sidewalk before, suddenly, she blinked out of existence.

"Wait, what?" Tony questioned and glanced back at the AI. "F.R.I.D.A.Y search New York for the gi-"

"Already done, sir, no matches-"

"Then run it for the state-"

"Done."

"Countr-"

"Done."

Stark crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember programming you for being so snarky."

"Uh-huh." Was all the AI would reply as Tony turned to Strange.

"Okay, so now what?" He questioned as Strange made a big deal of acting like he was surprised that Tony was talking to him.

"What? Me? Aren't _you_ the… what did they call you again?"

"Billionaire. Genius. Playboy. Philanthropist. I should really make a card." Stark replied as he rubbed his temples. "Well, see, I'm not really into all of this… magic stuff. I'm more of a science guy so I think that this is your turf-"

"This isn't magic." Strange replied and made an illusion of himself so that the other one was behind Tony. "This is magic."

Tony jolted at the sound of a voice coming behind him as Strange phased back to the same person as Tony wiped at his shirt, his eyebrows connected as the wizard continued. "What that girl can do… I think that it's because of an Infinity Stone."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Tony muttered, his thoughts briefly flashing to Quicksilver and Wanda. "Stupid HYDRA-"

"No, I really do think that she's an extra-terrestrial." Strange admits as he continues. "It would make sense, and she did talk about this Thanos-fellow-"

"Hey, hey, hey, I thought that I was making a plan! Stop interrupting m-"

"Well, you sure don't seem to be doing a very good job at it."

"Oh you-"

"Excuse me, gentlemen." A sudden voice popped up, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Both men immediately turned to the AI, still fuming with rage as it continued. "But something important has popped up at the front door."

"Who? Rose Waters?" Strange immediately inquires as the AI immediately dismisses it.

"No. Steve Rogers."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for all of your nice reviews! I hope I won't disappoint you with the new version of Infinity War that is about to unfold!**

 **Love you all,**

 **~Emily**


	4. Chapter 4

**Reunion Time**

It was Natasha's idea to go to Tony.

Wanda was a mess the second Vision had suddenly disappeared from her fingertips. He used to be right in front her, kissing her passionately as they stole minutes away from reality. His face used to be in her hands, his hands gently caressing her face.

And now he was gone. Stolen right from the same fingertips that used to marvel in his features.

It all happened so fast that when the outcome slapped her in the face, it was too much for her. She completely and utterly broke down, her heart shattered by a girl who appeared in her life just a few minutes prior. She didn't know if the love of her life was simply somewhere else or… or dead.

When it was quickly proved that Wanda couldn't go outside without destroying something in her furious sadness, and the Secret Avengers had already lost one of their heaviest hitters. So, with Falcon consoling Wanda, Natasha and Steve held their own emergency meeting.

"This is bad, Steve." Natasha mumbled underneath her breath, her eyes flicking to the swirling red magic that floated around the room Wanda was having a mental breakdown in. "Very, very bad."

"Yeah." The former Captain America replied, his chin resting in his hands, thinking.

"The base is compromised." She continued, pacing back and forth through the Quinjet, her attention now focused on the door, as if a SWAT team could appear at any given moment. "We need to get out of here."

"And go where?" Steve croaked, he himself still trying to figure out how he could be so stupid. How he let one of his friends go so easily, hardly putting up a fight. But most of all, how he himself felt like he knew the girl. There was just something about her that bugged him, something familiar.

The infamous Black Widow simply paused by the window, her eyes glazing over her surroundings. It was a couple of minutes before she spoke. "Stark. He need his help to find Vision."

At the mention of his old friend's name, Steve's head snapped up. "You know we can't do that. He's not ready." _He hasn't even bothered to call yet._

"Well we're out of time." Natasha snapped at him and took a few strides towards him. "Vision is gone, he's probably getting his stone knocked out of his head, and I don't think that I need to remind you just how dangerous that stone is."

Steve shut his eyes, his thoughts flickering to Loki and the Invasion of New York. Though the topic is certainly still up for debate, those were much simpler times. Just some team created to help defend the world, not like now, now when they can't even bother establishing communication with one another. He continued thinking about the attack as Natasha continued. "We need to alert him, Rogers. Now. He's our best shot to help defend Earth when she comes back again with the mind stone."

"How do you know she'll come back?"

Natasha only glances briefly at the door, her ears faintly hearing Wanda's sobs, her last words not directed at anyone in-particular.

"They always come back."

* * *

"HANDS IN THE AIR!" A voice screamed at the Black Widow and former Captain America, his voice muffled by the heavy gear that's required for the SWAT team. The two were casually standing in front of a building where they assumed Stark was located in, hands hung loosely at their sides rather than in the air. Neither bothered to even attempt to get dressed in casual wear and were both simply standing in the same gear they use to fight, making them look a little like the cos-players who dress up in Vegas or LA. In fact, dressing up like this almost seemed to fool the world a little more that they weren't truly the vigilantes that was on the top of most wanted lists. Someone even asked if they could snap a picture.

"Still think we should've left Wanda at the Quinjet." Steve mumbled underneath his breath as Natasha simply shot him a look.

"You know we couldn't risk it." _At least, not when she's in such a fragile state of mind._

"I SAID HANDS IN THE AIR, TRAITORS!" The voice continued as Natasha's eyes flickered from the men and women beginning to seem to practically double up before she mumbled underneath her breath.

"Come on Tony…" She whispered, and as if the legend had heard her prayers, a man in a suit wearing sunglasses walked out of the building, his eyes only briefly flickering to Steve and Natasha before he looked at the small army of soldiers with guns at the ready, as well as the few helicopters flying in. Followed closely by the billionaire, lied a man with a red cloak.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I got this." Tony Stark shouted, his hands raised as his eyes flashed at Cap. "Why don't you all take five for us to sort this out?!"

Unfortunately, Stark didn't exactly hold much authority in this kind of field, which was only made even more obvious when not a single soldier made a move to walk away. This caused Stark to sigh and turned to the two criminals, as if the large group of armed forces didn't exist. "I didn't remember picking up a phone anytime soon." He mumbled as Natasha immediately spoke up with no gestures of an apology nor a hello, her tone all business.

"We have a problem, Tony." Natasha stated, her voice cold as Tony gestured the large amount of people surrounding them more by the dozen.

"You don't say…" He replied before Cap spoke up.

"It's Vision. He was taken."

It was then when the Sorcerer spoke up, suddenly intrigued in the conversation. "By whom?"

"A girl." Natasha responded, ignoring the cries of officers threatening to shoot them if they don't immediately surrender. "Blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin-"

"Alright, come with me." Strange replied and immediately opened a portal, letting the two fugitives enter in first before he went in as well. Stark moved to enter the portal when a sudden shout caused him to pause.

"TONY STARK! IF YOU GO IN THAT MAGICAL HOLE, YOU'LL OFFICIALLY BE AN ENEMY OF THE COUNTRY AND WILL BE BREAKING THE ACCORDS BY HARBOURING A-"

He didn't stick around to hear the rest of it.

Once Tony entered the portal, he stepped out into the room that he saw from the picture of the girl-Rose Waters he said? Strange opened another portal and snatched out the same picture of the girl before he casually gave it to the two fugitives.

"Is this her?" He mumbled as both of them nodded.

"Yes. She teleported with Vision once she attacked our base."

"…And you just let her escape like that?" Stark questioned after a moment as Natasha took an intimidating step forward to see him eye to eye.

"We panicked and didn't know what the hell was happening. Tell me just exactly how you would procede the situation, Stark."

When Tony couldn't think of a good answer to her question, he gave her a simple nod and took a step back, ignoring the hot tension between the two. "Okay, okay." He replied and crossed his arms before looking at the three of them, pretending not to feel as if the situation was as awkward as it truly was. "So now what?"

"Now we wait for her to come back for the Time Stone, which is in my possession." Strange stated as Steve Rogers took a step forward, a look of shock on his face.

"Wait… There's a Time Stone _and_ a Mind Stone?"

"And a reality, soul, space, and power stone." Strange finished, leaving the rest of the scattered Avengers in a complete starstruck position as he casually scratched his goatee. "And she did mention something about someone having the Power Stone beforehand…"

"Wait, I'm confused, how did _you_ meet her?" Steve questioned Tony as he simple shrugged.

"You know, it's a big city…"

"Which makes the chances even smaller for one person to run into another." Natasha concluded as Tony held his hands up, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Wait, are you thinking that _I_ sent her after Vision?" Tony questioned, his eyes wide with a certain tinge of betrayal as Cap only shrugged.

"Well, it just seemed odd that we all-" He began, but before he could finish, Strange interrupted him.

"You idiots, shut up!" Strange screamed, causing everyone to stare at him.

"You're talking to them, right?" Stark questioned while pointed to the two outlaws. However, the Doctor simply ignored him as he spoke up.

"She said someone already obtained the Power Stone…" He mumbled, seeming to have a mental breakdown as he quickly whispered something into his cloak, causing it to fly away.

"So? Big whoop." Tony spoke, his hands casually resting in his pockets as Strange only took a step forward to truly give him a death stare.

"The Power Stone destroys _entire planets, Mr. Stark."_ He hissed, his final words grabbing the attention of the rest of the three heroes who immediately stared at him with wide eyes.

"Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?" Steve immediately asked as Strange threw his shaky hands in the air.

"I met two of you two minutes ago!" Strange exclaimed before he continued in a much smaller voice. "And besides, I thought she was just fibbing to get my attention."

"Yeah, well, your uncertainty of her words may have just granted Earth it's death wish." Steve hissed at the magician's face as Natasha mumbled words into her communications ear piece to a variety of people as a chubby man of Asian complexity came running over followed closely by the Doctor's red cape.

"You called?" the magician asked as Tony pointed at him, completely confused onto how many people were getting invited to this little party.

"Who is he?"

"My name is Wong." Replied the man as he turned to Strange. "You know, this better be important, the cosmos doesn't protect itse-"

"Someone has possession of the Power Stone." Strange mumbled underneath his breath, which didn't even seem to faze the Wong.

"And their funeral is when?" He questioned, which only made Strange snap at him even more.

"And has control over it!" At his words, Wong's face considerably pales.

"Impossible." He mumbled as Tony raised a hand.

"I'm sorry, but I'm confused onto what's going on around here."

As Wong gathered the Avengers around to explain the making of the Stones via a cool hologram, Strange walked off and sank into his astro-form before quickly taking off for the city, desperate to find out where exactly Rose Waters was located. Her words bounced back into his mind as he searched for what felt like an hour, only to find absolutely nothing.

 _He wants to destroy half of the universe!_

Her now haunting words plagues Strange's skull as he heads back to the New York Sanction only to find that the lecture about the Infinity Stones Origins were now over.

"So, she only has the Mind Stone… That means that she can't be that powerful, right?" Steve Rogers questions as Strange took a couple of wobbly strides towards them.

"Actually, she has the Mind and Space stones, which, the latter is, how you would call, the Tesseract." He replies as Tony shuts his eyes and rubs at his temples.

"Wait, wasn't the Tesseract located in Asgard?" Natasha questions, her hands placed on her hips as Strange nods.

"Yes, she mentioned that she had… contacts." He continued as Tony put his hands up.

"I'm calling it now, Loki gave it to her." Tony spoke as he walked away when Wong spoke up.

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

At his haunting words, the five heroes turned around only to find a girl with lightening blond hair, pale, barely freckled skin, and crisp bright blue eyes staring at the odd group, as if she found their bickering amusing. When she received the attention of all five was when she finally spoke up.

"We need to talk."

* * *

 **A/N: OUUUUUUUUUUUU**

 **Thank you for all your support!**

 **~Emily**


	5. Chapter 5

**Lightning**

It only took the five heroes ten seconds to compose themselves to get ready for whatever the girl's devious mind had decided to do.

For Wong and Strange, it was pulling out their mystical arts skills and giving Rose Waters a stare that could cut steel. For Tony Stark, it was double tapping the nanotech that rested on his ark reactor so that a metal suit encased his body in seconds. For Black Widow it was grabbing the batons that lied across her back, while Steve Rogers simply took a step forward towards the girl, his usual calm exterior suddenly fueled by rage.

"Where's Vision?" The war hero hissed, his voice dark and intimidating at the same time as Tony finished suited up.

"You got some nerve coming here." Tony Stark spoke, now completely encased in his metal suit. In response, Rose Waters simply tilted her head at their words, as if she found them amusing.

"Vision is safe." Rose whispered, her voice soft and silky as she took a step forward, making everyone in front of her tense up, as if just waiting for her to attack. When she notices the slight fear that coats the air, Rose pauses, her eyes scanning the five superheroes in front of her. Her next words came out only slightly louder than a whisper, almost as if she was talking to herself. "Completely and utterly safe."

It still kind of scared the five of them onto how young she looked, _especially_ right now, with her sharp blond hair framing her face and her features only a little more mature. She looked sixteen, a teenager. Too young to just strike without a good reason, too old to not know the consequences of her actions. _A child,_ thought Natasha as memories of the Red Room inflicted her mind. Could it be possible that she went through the same devastating training as her? She almost shudders at the next thought when she glances at her cold blue eyes, how they looked as if they had never seen a glance of happiness, not to mention the calculated look in her eye. _No, she went through worse._

"We'll give you one chance and once chance alone." Dr. Strange spoke, his voice solid and full of confidence. He and Rose Waters were thinking the exact same thing, she didn't stand a chance against them. She was outnumbered, though, it still remained a mystery onto whether she was outskilled. "Surrender. Now."

Rose Waters' bored expression stayed the same as she spoke up once more. "I came here to talk." She was intimidating for sure, her fingers twitching with power as Natasha took a step forward, her eyes never leaving her own.

"Tell us where Vision is. Now."

Rose completely ignored her comment and continued to speak. "You are all in grave danger." She hissed, glancing at all five of them. "He is coming, and I don't understand why _absolutely none of you are understanding that._ He is _coming_ and he will destroy you all." For once, her voice changed from monotone to something else... fear.

"Who?" Tony questioned as he raised his hand, completely ready to shoot a laser or two at the girl. He knew in the back of his mind that if she just didn't look so… so young… so innocent, then he already would've put her in a coma. They all would've if she just didn't look so much like a kid... and Rose knew that, she she played it to her advantage.

" _Thanos_." Rose croaked out, her voice finally becoming completely transparent, showing all of her deepest rooted feelings. The feeling of fear, of pain. "He is _coming_ for the Time Stone, and you have to trust me. The only place where it can even have a fraction of being safe _is with me_."

The passion is evident in her voice, it's so vivid that nobody in the room can deny the fact that she's honestly scared of the man that she just mentioned. That she truly believed in her cause. When nobody speaks up as if they were all thinking, so the young girl takes the opportunity to speaks up again.

" _He's crazy."_ She whispered softly, her hands shaking as she looks at them. "He wants to wipe out half of the universe, and if he has the stones, then he'll do it with the snap of his fingers. Once he comes to Earth, he'll set it all to _ruin._ Please, you don't understand who you're dealing with."

Once again, nobody speaks up. Not even a quip or joke to break the dense ice that surrounds the room. It was obvious that everyone was still trying to make up their mind on whether or not to trust her or not. When a minute or so passes in silence, Rose throws her hands into the air, her head flashing at the chandelier, which made the light reflect off of her face, showing a tear.

"Why can't you guys just trust me on this-" She starts, her voice angry. _Angry? As if she has the right to be angry,_ Strange thinks before he interrupts.

"We're not talking about some piece of candy!" His voice booms throughout the room. Not a soul even flinches. "This is the _Time Stone_ you're asking _us_ to give up. Do you know the sheer amount of power it possesses? It can reverse time, send one into a time loop-"

"Wait, what?" Tony questions, holding up as Strange blantly ignores him.

"-and we've been entrusted with it since the beginning, so I'm so _terribly sorry_ that we're not entirely enthusiastic to bring it some alien girl who appeared at our doorstep." Sarcasm heavily sedated Strange's voice at the end as Rose whispered something underneath her breath. When nobody, even Tony with his enhanced microphone, picks it up, Wong speaks up.

"Excuse me?"

Rose snaps her head at the crowd and repeats herself, her eyes dead serious. "I'm. Not. An. Alien." She whispers softly and shakes her head. When she speask again, her voice is louder, it's echoing off of the walls. "For once, I am not an alien."

Strange raises an eyebrow. "You're of Earth?"

Once again, Rose ignores his words and opens the palm of her hand so that two sharp daggers are placed in them as as she speaks up again. "I don't want to hurt you, bu-"

However, before Rose can think of finishing her sentence, Tony Stark sent immediately slammed his repulsors at Rose. In an act of self-defence, Rose made a cabinet that used to rest peacefully near the wall teleport in front of her as her shield.

"The Shelf of Ancient Relics!" Wong screamed as Tony casually turned it to ash.

"I'll send you a cheque." Tony replied as he blasted over to the remaining pieces of the cabinet along with Wong and the other two former Avengers.

"It's irreplaceable, and used to be full of priceless magical artifact-" Wong begins as Tony scans through the cabinet for Rose Waters as Steve kicks at the wood carelessly, desperate to find her body.

"No body detected, Mr. Stark." F.R.I.D.A.Y spoke as Tony turned around and looked from side to side as everyone desperately tried to figure out where exactly she went. And it was then, when it hit Tony.

"You guys…" Tony whispered, his voice dragging on, easily catching everyone's attention. "Where's Wizard?"

And just like that, everyone realized that the Sorcerer Supreme was gone from the room.

"No…" Natasha whispered and glanced worryingly at Steve when a sudden shock rocked the building.

What the remaining four didn't know was that the moment that the cabinet was placed in front of Rose Waters, she teleported behind Strange and immediately grabbed him before she teleported away. However, unfortunately for her, she was still drained from her previous fight with Steve Rogers and Vision, so she only managed to make a few small jumps to outside of the sanctum into the streets of New York City.

"Give me the stone." Rose whispered softly as Strange immediately dives away from the girl before she can teleport him away once more. "Now, we're out of time."

"Well, I have an abundance of that." Strange replied as he levitated a car to slam it into Rose as men and women fled the scene screaming.

With a blink, Rose appeared a couple of feet away from the car and jumped on top of it before she used the car to jump off of and tackled the magician to the ground.

"I guess I'll just have to take it then." Rose hissed as she jolted her wrist, expecting the necklace to appear within her fingertips. However, instead, an seared, almost burned, indent appeared onto Rose's palm as she immediately covered it with her other hand as Strange only smirked.

"A simple spell, but quite unbreakable." He winked as he whistled for his cape to wrap around Rose's head. In response, Rose stumbled around, her daggers still clumsily lying in her hands as she suddenly felt a strange, smooth rope wrap around her wrists and ankles.

Before she knew it, the cape was off, revealing that Strange had wrapped her limbs around some sort of magical, orange rope. She jolted against the rope as pedestrians who slowly surrounded her took pictures and videos of the event, as if she was some circus freak. In the corner of Rose's eye, she spotted the door of the Sanctum opening as the outlaws, billionaire, and Wong exited, ready for round two, only to realize that the Sorcerer Supreme already had Rose all wrapped up.

"Well, that was easy." Stark spoke as some people cheered at the sight of other superheroes. His mask disappeared as he walked over where Strange was holding her tight with the magical ropes, some of which came and snaked around the girl's torso and thighs.

"You don't know what you're doing." Rose whispered softly as the Captain stands in front of her so that his face is all she can see, followed closely by Black Widow.

"Where is Vision?" He hissed as Strange spoke up.

"We need answers. Now."

"Why don't any of you understand!" Rose screams, her voice hoarse and loud, spit falling all over the Captain's beard because of her rather short height. Her voice shattered the small amount of chatter that went on between the civilians, who were casually recording the humiliated girl. In the corner of Rose's vision, some SWAT team members appeared, faintly yelling that they came for the arrest of Tony Stark and Dr. Stephen Strange for harboring of the two criminals.

"Where is Vision and the Tesseract!?" Wong shouted as Rose took in rapid breaths, her eyes suddenly closed as a blaring headache closes in on her skull. She looks up at the sky, her blue eyes staring at the blueness of the sky, her hands shaking as she quickly realizes what's happening. She just knew, there was no other way to describe it.

"He's here." She muttered underneath her breath and glare at the rest of them. She's surely gotten mad now, her once peaceful, bored face now full of horror and fear. "HE'S HERE! HE'S HERE! WHY DOESN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND THAT RIGHT NOW!"

"Is she going crazy?" Tony muttered to Strange as Rose fought against the magical ropes, tears lining her eyes as she shuts her eyes, all struggle suddenly emptying out of her body as she slouched, the only thing keeping her up being the ropes that bind her.

"It's pointless." She mutters as she spots more and more men in black surrounding the strange group, some holding guns, others missile launchers. The SWAT team scatters the random citizens, sending them each and every way. When she lifts her head back up, a sharp look of determination lies in them as a sudden breeze whips across her long, white-blond hair as she turns her head to Strange and concentrates.

" _You're all pointless. I don't even know why I try."_

And it was then when the first person screamed, followed by others and frantic running of pedestrians when the heroes finally realized what was happening.

A large ship the size of what seemed to have the surface area of a city was approaching them. It was flat, dark grey, and threatening, so threatening, that even some SWAT people started scattering away as the five heroes stood their ground when Rose Waters laughed. Laughed. It was maniacal and sad. So, so sad.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, may I welcome to the stand, Thanos."

Then, underneath her breath, she whispered something else, just for herself.

"…I hope you all have a beautiful funeral."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! They always seem to manage to make my day! :)**

 **I'm so glad that so many of you like this story, I hope that the next few chapters will keep your opinion the same way!**

 **Have a beautiful day,**

 **~Emily**


	6. Chapter 6

**Who's With Who?**

He was the man who had lost everything.

An eye, hair, friends. A mother, father. Sister. A hammer.

Yet there he still was, grinning away like nobody grinned before. His smile wide and shining at his fellow friends, because deep down, he knew that he didn't lose everything. After all, here he was, surrounding by his people, his friends, and, at long last, his brother. Perhaps his home and kingdom was now reduced to a semi-large cargo ship, but in a way, it didn't bother the man nearly as much as it should've. If anything, it only made him feel a little more happy, it could've been so much worse after all.

"So now what?" Loki questioned his brother as he sat on the metal chair that was wordless named his throne. The new king of Asgard had been staring out into the stars for the longest time now, his one eye twinkling with a sort of wisdom that wasn't there in the past.

"Now we head for Midgard." Thor replied, his voice deep as the ship raced past the stars, the sound of his people talking and laughing bouncing into his ears.

His people were basking in the small feast that was prepared by the others, it was a variety of food that some had found while searching the ship. It might've been nothing more than some frozen food pumped with preservatives and canned soup that might've gone bad, and, the prized possession being some actual fruit, but to the men and women on that ship, it was a feast worthy of a king. They ate the soup out of the tin cans and were generously served portions of the meat.

However, the majority of the food was graciously donated to the green beast who sat in the center of it all. Despite all of the convincing, the Hulk refused to shift back into Banner. In a way, it was better that way, after all, the children adored the Hulk. He did take down the big, scary black wolf that had threatened to eat them after all. It was the children who were one of the first to give the Hulk their meat, giggling when he took it and swallowed the puny portions in one gulp. Most wanted to climb his large muscles, which, surprisingly, the Hulk allowed, as if it was in return for giving him his well-deserved snack.

Despite everything that had just taken place, however, Thor didn't touch a piece of his meal and simply sat in his chair, his single eye watching the view before him, the sound of happiness in the background.

"Now, I know that Asgard is where the people are and everything." Thor mumbled underneath his breath to his only brother. His only family. "But, well, do you think that… that it'll ever come back."

Loki knew exactly what Thor was talking about. What if the beautiful land of Asgard might, magically, undo the damage that Surtur and Hela had done to it and restore itself to its former glory? That, maybe, the broken, charred land might put itself together, completely ignoring the laws of physics and sticking back together as if by superglue into the realm that it once was. Loki obviously knew that there wasn't a chance that that would ever happen, that Midgard was their new home now, but for the sake of his brother's fragile state of mind, he only slightly reassured him.

"Well, anything is possible."

"Yes." Thor replied, his voice hoarse as he rested his head on his hands as he stared into the infinity of the universe. "I suppose it is."

* * *

"-I hope you all have a beautiful funeral." Rose Waters mumbled underneath her breath and before anyone else could move, Rose Waters grabbed at the magical rope yanked it so harshly and unexpectedly, that it brought Dr. Strange to her. Once he was in close proximity to the girl, she jumped off of the ground and kicked off of him in the gut, instantly making him lose concentration and shattered the magical rope as Rose Waters landed on her feet, her eyes flickering up at the much too familiar ship as men and women in the area began to scream.

"Sam, we have a problem." Black Widow mumbled into her ear piece as the man who seemed to be in control of the SWAT team started screaming once more.

"STEVE ROGERS AND NATASHA ROMANOFF, STAND DOWN IMMEDIATELY OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"

In return to his words, Doctor Strange simply opened a portal underneath the general, sending him off to somewhere in Africa. When he glanced back at the rest of the members of the SWAT team, he simply raised an eyebrow. "Anyone like to join him?" He questioned and when the trained soldiers gave a quick shake of a head, Steve Rogers took over the speech.

"Then get all of these civilians out of here!" Rogers screamed, instantly scattering the rest of the SWAT team to guide the people to safety as Rogers directed his attention to the rest of the team, trying his best not to look at Tony Stark. To say that the situation was awkward between them was an understatement, but for now, they could push away they contrasting feelings and fight for the good of Earth. For now. It was then when, he realized something. "Wait, where's the girl?"

"Cap, we have bigger fish to fry." Black Widow whispered in response, her voice soft as she nodded towards the sudden beam of bright blue light that sent five figures down to the earth near the five heroes. As the figures quickly took shape, Stark immediately brought out his repulsors and aimed at the incoming threat.

What the remaining heroes saw was something that they thought was only the stuff of movies. It was five aliens, all of them dreaded in black and looking completely and utterly deadly, not to mention terrifying. They bore cold and lethal weapons, and have an almost lifeless look in their eyes. However, one of them stood out besides the rest of the figures, a large, purple man clothed head to toe in a clad of thick, intimidating armour. They were all obviously not from Earth, but the purple alien took that to another level with his horrifying glare in his eye.

The purple man had a sort of… intimidating aura to him. Perhaps it was the large, golden glove that lied on his hand with a glowing purple stone on it, or maybe it was just the ruthless, cold look in his eye that would make a heartless man look like the world's savior. Either way, it was obvious to the naked eye that this was the man that Rose Waters had desperately tried to warn them about.

This was Thanos.

He wasn't a man for introductions either, in fact, his words were oddly simple. And deadly.

"Bring me the Time Stone."

Without another word of action, his deadly instructions immediately sent his four minions to action, their eyes targeting the sorcerer supreme who held the stone around his neck. However, rather than surrender the necklace to the invaders, in response to Thanos' words, Strange simply pulled his fists back and gave Thanos the most intimidating look he could muster.

And then chaos ensued.

It was an unspoken order that everyone needed to protect the wizard, and almost immediately, everyone did. Tony pulled out his missiles, Former Captain America and Black Widow teamed up to take others down, while Wong and Strange worked together to take down the more powerful members of the team.

While the attempt was certainly well used, it was practically useless against the fully prepared Black Order and Thanos, who easily swiped through each and every one of them with ease. Thanos didn't even bother to use his stone and simply walked through the crowded fighting scene towards the man who held the Time Stone in a necklace as the Avengers slowly, but surely, began to realize that they weren't being outnumbered, but outskilled.

Stark was taking on Cull Obsidian, the large, intimidating beast with muscles and the size to rival the Hulk, along with the weapon of what looked like a pickaxe. Black Widow attempted to take on Proxima Midnight, the pale, deadly lady child of Thanos with blue hair, but the Widow's assassin skills could only do so well against a welly trained alien. Captain America was only barely on par with Corvus Glaive, who wore a black hood which wrapped around his skull, and despite all of his efforts to try to prevail, it was obvious to the naked eye that it would be a long battle. It was Wong and Strange took on Ebony Maw, who was the most intimidating of them all, and despite all of their training in the mystic arts, they both knew in their hearts that there was no way that they could face off against the purple man who took his sweet time walking through the mayhem towards them, every step causing practically an earthquake to rain down on New York City.

As Stark launched Cull Obsidian at a lamppost, desperate to be able to ditch the beast and get more focused on the big guy up front, was when a sudden fluid of white stacked around him. Tony didn't have to turn behind him to notice a familiar spider land against the wall, but he did so anyway, only to watch as the young boy stuck out his two forefingers to salute his mentor.

"Hey, Mr. Stark, what's the problem here?" Spider-Man questioned as the Black Dwarf easily managed to snap away from the webs, which was still vaguely stuck against his amour, which only made him more outraged.

"Yeah, kid, not the time right now." Tony replied, his eyes flickering to the assassin. "Her. Help her."

"Black Widow? Isn't she an outlaw-"

"Now, Parker!"

"Woah, don't blow my cover that easily!" Peter shouted as he shot a web at Proxima Midnight's spear before grabbing it. "Woah, this thing is dope!"

And just like that, the spider-ling was fighting among aliens and criminals. With a two-on-one, the lady was easily dominated and quickly sedated with a few quick punches from the assassin along with enough web fluid to cover a building from Spider-Man.

"I'll help Cap, you stop that… thing." Black Widow mumbled to the teenager whiling nudging in Thanos' direction, thinking that he would be a lot more useful in at least delaying Thanos' arrival to Strange.

"On it." Spider-Man replied and ran over to Thanos, only slightly ticked off that he didn't get to meet the infamous Captain America for the second time, this time fighting among him.

However, the enhanced human was no chance against Thanos, who brushed him away with a simple glint of the Power Stone, instantly swiping him back to hit a wall, his footsteps getting closer and closer to the real prize.

After Ebony Maw casually placed Wong underneath a sea of bricks, he finally managed to close in on Strange, who immediately attempted to overpower him by sending a couple of cars his way. However, Maw simply sliced them all in half when a sudden trash can lid hit him from the back of the head.

Annoyed at the sudden pain that stabbed at his skull, Maw turned around only to be met by Captain America, who had managed to stab Corvus Glaive, the man with the hood, with Black Widow's help. When the garbage can landed back in his hand, the outlaw once again threw it at the telekenesis man, his muscles more than remembering how it felt to throw such an item. However, Maw immediately scrunched it into a tiny ball of metal before shooting it at him at an almost impossible speed, but the ball dropped to the ground harmlessly when a sudden car infused with red magic slammed into the telekinetic's head, instantly slamming him into unconsciousness.

And then landed Falcon, War Machine, and Scarlet Witch, all of whom were intensely pissed off as well as completely ready for a good fight to ensue. Scarlet Witch's magic hummed more fiercely than ever, her brown eyes burning red. The sadness she had once felt was now morphed into pure and absolute anger as she stood completely ready to dominate the fight in the name of her love.

However, at a simple nod from Thanos, Cull Obsidian, easily swiped past the billionaire and rammed against the three new heroes, instantly beginning to take them on away from his master to remove one of Thanos' more bigger threats. However, his actions was a double edged sword since that also brought Stark to him along with Spider-Man, Captain America, Black Widow, and Doctor Strange.

No words were said as Thanos almost immediately made work of Black Widow, who was unfortunate enough to try to make the first strike at Thanos. He rammed her immediately into a wall as Spider-Man tried his best to string some webs to the wall so that it wouldn't hurt too bad. However, he wasn't quick enough and she slammed into the wall with a force that would've killed a normal human. The teenager was quick to take her away from the battle, determined that she wouldn't get more hurt than she already was. It didn't help that that was also when Proxima Midnight finally managed to break free of the web fluid and beg haner assault on the teenager and assassin once more.

Stark and Doctor Strange were the next to raise their fists and begin to duel with the Mad Titan. No more quips, no more jokes. To them, this was it. While the two both launched at him from a rather long range, it was actually Steve Rogers who unexpectedly decided to run up to fight Thanos to fight him mono a mono.

However, before one could do so, Thanos whispered a single word. "Enough."

And just like that, he slammed his fist in the ground, instantly creating an earthquake that shook New York to it's core. Almost immediately, screams were heard from the men, women and children who were still within their apartments. In fact, within Iron Man's view, a family seemed to trapped in a shaking room, and without hesitation, he rushed over to take them out of the apartment in a desperate attempt to bring them to safety, all while Steve Rogers desperately tried to get his footing right as he tried to land a punch on the Mad Titan.

However, before he could, his hand was caught in Thanos' gloved one, a smirk lying on his face as he knelt down to see the Captain in the face. "You just don't give up, do you?" He muttered as he tossed the Captain aside, as if he was worthless.

Once he was out of the way, Thanos made his way over to Strange, who hovered in the air. He desperately wanted to reverse time, but he knew that it was too late. By even showing the Time Stone to Thanos would mean that he would be able to steal it.

And that just couldn't happen.

"The Time Stone." Thanos hissed as Dr. Strange simply took a pose and gave him a death glare. "Now."

"No thank yo-" Strange started, but before he could go through with his sentence, a sudden strike of pain attacked his shoulder. Before the magician knew it, he was no longer in the and instead on his knees in front of Thanos.

The world turned silent. You could hear a penny drop.

Thanos looked down at the figure that stood behind the wizard, a dagger digged into his shoulder and a cold, heartless look in her eyes. It was a strange look, in fact, it didn't match her at all, especially not with her pretty face. Strange sputtered out blood and shook at the pain that dug into his body, his mind somehow freezing. He couldn't recall a single spell that could even hope to get him out of his situation. His cape fluttered and wrestled against the girl's weight, but the girl didn't budge an inch as she looked up at Thanos, a small smirk of satisfaction on her face. It was a look that Thanos remembered all too well.

"My Lord." She whispered, her voice more fierce and more victorious than anything that she had ever spoke before. Iron Man raced through the sky, his eyes flickering to the wizard until he heard another scream of some other family. Stark cursed in his mind and turned away from the wizard, his focus dedicated completely to saving as many people as he could.

Buildings crashed and crumpled, screams of horror ran in the background and Rose Waters simply continued with her speech.

"May I present to you the keeper of the Time Stone. Doctor Stephen Strange." At the mention of his name, Strange felt his eyes get droopy and the fight drain out of him.

"You're alive." Thanos whispered ever so softly as Rose Waters only slightly tilted her head, letting her brilliant blond hair fall onto her shoulder.

"Did you ever doubt it?"

With almost no more regard to the Time Stone, Thanos stuck out a hand, his gauntlet hand, and stared at the girl, his small, beady eyes eying her large, blue ones. It was an unspoken question that he asked her, and she responded in the way she always did.

She took his hand.

"Daughter." He mumbled and with a glance up at the ship, a sudden ray of blue light encased her, the Doctor, and the other Black Order members, all of which were now beginning to recover or fighting tooth and nail against the Avengers.

The process of going into the clouds was quick, so quick, that when Wanda had realized that her enemy was floating for the sky and she tried to use her magic to wrap around his foot, he was already far out of her range.

The ship disappeared even faster. The only evidence remaining found in broken buildings, lost souls, and the memories of the broken Avengers who just stood there, breathing quite heavily. Everyone quickly gathered together, their eyes wide at what the hell just happened. Peter Parker took the longest, his footsteps uneven and strange as he couldn't take his eyes off of the now gone ship, his mouth wide as he eventually took his place beside Tony Stark.

"Mr. Stark…" Peter whispered, still in shock at the events that just occurred. Nobody paid him any attention and Stark was the second to speak.

"What… Just… Happened…?" The Billionaire whispered as he walked towards the rest of the members, the dozens of families he saved now running to the nearest safe zone, if there was one. Everyone grouped up, just like old days, and looked at one another before questions were immediately consumed by the entire group.

"Mr. Stark…" Spider Man repeated once again, this time a little louder. However, his plea only flies on deaf ears as everyone started screaming at everyone. Slightly annoyed that his voice wasn't being heard, not to mention extremely tired, Peter spoke up again, this time even louder than before. "MR. STARK!"

"WHAT!" Tony screamed, immediately catching everyone's attention, casting almost a spell for everyone to stare at the duo. Tony immediately noticed theire stares and cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "What is it?" he mumbled, his eyes flickering to everyone else's. The next words that Spider-Man was startling to say the least.

"… I know her." Peter mumbled, instantly making everyone widened their eyes.

"Know who?" Tony responded, even though it was so painfully obvious who exactly the famous Spider-Man was talking about. More than obvious.

"The girl… Her name is Rose Waters and she's… um, well, she's in my Physics class."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for wait time, but here it is... a very, very long chapter... happy early Christmas!**

 **I hope I didn't disappoint!**

 **Tell me what you think of this chapter in the review section, and, as always, I hope that I stayed true to the characters personalities! I spent a lot of time with this chapter, mostly just being all nitpicky onto the details, and I missed anything, I'm truly sorry, but hey, there's only so much time in the day. I hope you enjoyed!**

 **Have an amazing day (or night :) )**

 **~Emily**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: In this version, Guardians 1 is getting taken place eight months prior and Guardians 2 happened 4 months ago. Just to avoid confusion… alright, carry on…**

 **The Great Earthquake of New York**

Rose Waters landed in the ships' throne room with a thud, her feet gently getting placed on the ground along with the other Children of Thanos and Dr. Strange, who was stuttering from blood loss as Thanos waved a dismissive hand.

"Get me the Time Stone, whatever it takes." Thanos muttered and Rose turned around swiftly, ready to follow the rest of them, though, in the back of her mind, she knew that Thanos had other things planned for her. Those beliefs were quickly confirmed when a large, metal hand gets placed on her all too small shoulder.

"Stay." Thanos mumbled, which was all it took for Rose Waters gave him a sharp nod before she turned around and stood quietly as Thanos walked over to his chair, as if it's been a long, long day. He sits down with a thud as Rose took large strides towards him, despite her petite figure, but stopped before she reached the stairs, her wide blue eyes looking up at him and one of her knees on the ground in a sign of respect. It was Rose who was the first to speak up.

"Gamora, Nebula." Rose whispered softly. "Where are they?"

"I think the better question is where you were," Thanos replied, the helmet that was resting on his head slightly slanted. He was intimidating for sure, but to Rose Waters, he was nothing new. Just the same old man that she's known for her entire life, the one who no longer seemed to intimidate her, no matter how brutal he was. She's seem so much blood, so much _war,_ in her eighteen years of life, that nothing really struck her as intimidating anymore.

"I mourned for you." The being spoke as if mourning was uncommon, as if one shouldn't do so. "We all did." _Define all._

"I'm terribly sorry, my Lord." Rose replied, her voice emotionless, yet sincere. "I was caught in the crossfires of the Nova Corps and was taken hostage for months before I managed to break free." A pause in her words, yet she doesn't dare look up at her Lord. "I later stumbled upon Earth and went on a quest to find a way off the planet, but the technology wasn't sufficient enough to leave the atmosphere, so I was forced to live with the commoners until I found a way. Later, I found out that the Time Stone was located on the planet, so I attempted to retrieve it for you."

"The Mind Stone is still located on in this system." Thanos mumbled underneath his breath, not giving the girl's story a second thought. And why would he? After all, Rose was never one to doubt his ways and she wouldn't start now. "But not the… Tesseract."

"I thought that the Asgardians has possession of the Space Stone." Rose replied, her blue eyes still watching the stone in front of her, the purple one glittering on his glove. The room felt impossibly more deadly than before, the very air feeling saturated in pure evil. Yet, it was so familiar, that for the first time in the past year, she felt as though she could finally breathe.

"Yes, until we found a certain… clue that said otherwise. Evidence found by Maw to be exact, that said that the Collector had both of the Reality and Space Stones. The traitor of the mind stone, Loki… He was shown giving the Tesseract to the man. That is where we will go to next."

"And go to it we shall." Rose replied and she stood up, her head slowly quirking to one side. "And rescue the dying planet as we do."

Thanos stood up from his chair and took the few steps down so that he stood on even ground with Rose, who didn't even flinch. She was just above his hip, so Thanos crouched down so that his face was in front of hers. Then, he spoke, his words haunting.

"I missed you, Rose."

When Rose replied, it was with a twisted, brutal smile on her face, her eyes shining.

"As did I, Father."

* * *

"Wait… Wait, excuse me." Tony Stark said once everyone had heard what the teenage boy had said. "Are you sure that you're talking about the same person, kid? Because last I heard, she was an alien from outer space!"

In response to his question, Peter Parker nodded quickly, his eyes not daring to even blink as he replied. "Yeah, a hundred percent, Mr. Stark. That was her."

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., please search Peter's physics class for Rose Wat-"

"Dude!" Peter hissed, his eyes suddenly turning as large as saucers as he glanced at the large pile of superheroes that casually stood worryingly around him. "Secret identity!"

"Wait, your name is Peter?" Falcon questioned, his arms crossed. "I was getting more of, like a, Walsh or Tom vibe from you."

"Shhh...!" Peter Parker hissed as F.R.I.D.A.Y. finally responded to Tony's question.

"Scan done, sir. It's 99% match." The machine spoke as Tony cursed while Steve Rogers took a step forward.

"Same person?"

"Yeah, it's the same person. Why didn't we do the scan of all ID's in the city first?" Tony wanted to face palm himself so badly, and he probably would've if he didn't have his helmet over his face.

"Well, to make you feel better, she can teleport, so it was pretty logical to think that she's not exactly from Brooklyn." Black Widow chipped in as Spider-Man immediately put his hands in the air.

"Hey, I swear to God, I didn't know that she could teleport… or that she was an alien…" Peter rubbed his hands over his face, when a sudden strike of realization hit him. "Oh my God, I have a crush on a freakin' alien."

When every Avenger immediately turned their head to look at him, the almighty Spider-Man immediately tensed up and took a step back. "I said that out-loud… you know what, I'll just stand over here…"

Once Peter was out of the picture, the adults had a quick conversation, their voices low before the sudden ring of ambluences ran through the air. The noise almost immediately sent a flinch through half of the heroes, who quickly realized just how much destruction was around the city.

"I know that it's bad to run away and all…" War Machine muttered, his eyes glancing at his broken-up team. "But we really need to leave, ASAP. Aliens might've invaded, but frankly, that won't stop the government from doing their mightiest to turn us in… God, I went rogue for _this_ …"

"Yeah, I'll get the Quinjet, and go back to Scotland-" Sam replied and widened his wings, completely ready for take off if Iron Man didn't butt in.

"I propose that we go somewhere else." Tony stated out of nowhere. Everyone's eyes immediately raced to the billionaire, suddenly intrigued as Tony took in a breath and quickly explained his plan. "Before Mr. Wizard got shot into space,-"

"His name is Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme." Wong interrupted as Tony turned ever so slightly to shoot the man a dirty look before continuing with his explanation.

"I had actually… bugged him." Tony took a sharp breathe of air, not really wanting to look at anyone. At his former teammates. "You know, those little tracking devices, except I've… configured them so that they can work away… Like, light years. So…"

"Sir, I don't mean to interrupt," F.R.I.D.A.Y interrupted. "but while looking for the tracking device, we've seemed to have lost all connection with it."

"God damn it!" Iron Man screamed and ran his hand through his hair, his suit quickly unconstructing before he nods his head once and looked back at everyone before sighing. "So… Scotland did you say?"

"Oh, Mr. Stark, I actually always wanted to go to Scotlan-" Peter's hopeful voice suddenly popped in right as the Quinjet began to land nearby, making everyone immediately begin to board.

"No, no, no, no." Stark replied and turned around as he crossed his arms. "We're going because _we're fugitives._ The government will lock _us_ up if we get caught, but they don't even know who _you_ are. So you're going to be the friendly-neighbourhood Spider-Man, not the friendly-around-the-world Spider-Man. Capeshe?"

In response, Peter just slightly slinked back in his spot and faintly nodded as Tony gave him a jolt of a head nod back before he put his suit back on and flew away to who knew where.

* * *

Scott Lang wasn't doing anything particularly interesting that day.

It was a combination of lounging at the beach with his daughter, having a little make-out session with Hope, and trying out the new, working version of the Ant-Man suit. All of it, however, added up to complete and utter exhaustion.

The reason for the new Ant-Man suit was because Hank Pym wanted Scott to go down to the Quantum realm for some more quantum energy. They would send more people, but bottom line, it was just too dangerous. Too dangerous for Hank Pym to even think about having his precious daughter's life on the line. Tomorrow would be a combination of tests and even more work, which meant that the next time that he would have spare time would probably be a few days from now, so Scott decided to relish in it.

...By watching a bit of TV of course. However, he really wasn't expecting to hear that an earthquake had happened in New York City, which seemed to have been caused by a giant purple grape from outer space just an hour ago.

To say that that startled Scott would be an understatement. It baffled him so much, that when he saw the spotty footage of the giant, space-man, he almost jumped off of the couch. It felt almost impossible that it was happening, and in New York of all places. The entire thing was just… just surreal. And for a second time too?

It was then, when Scott heard a couple of thuds against glass. At first, Scott thought that it was just his imagination, but when the knocks seemed to get harder and quicker, Scott finally got up to see what all the fuss was about. With his luck, it would probably be a family of raccoons trying to annoy the heck out of him...

However, to his great surprise, instead, he saw Tony Stark.

His Iron Man suit was dismantled and tucked away into his ark reactor, but what surprised Scott the most, was the fact that the patio door was actually unlocked and slightly open. Tony Stark chose to stay outside for some strange reason.

The moment that Scott Lang saw the famous billionaire, he immediately jumped back, his eyes wide as he tripped over his own two feet and landed on his bum. From there, he simply stared with wide eyes, almost not being able to comprehend what was being presented in front of him. His reaction was understandable, after all, the last time that Scott had seem Iron Man, it was when he was in handcuffs after attempting to help aid Captain America escape.

And it was then, when Scott spoke. "I swear to God that I don't know where Cap is-" He started when Tony Stark simply slided open the patio door and walked inside, his head occasionally glancing behind him, as if he was worried that someone might be following him.

"I need your help." Tony stated and walked around his home, as if he owned it. At his words, Scott simply shut his eyes and stuttered out the next sentence.

"That's exactly what Cap said." He mumbled and opened his eyes once more. "If this is about the whole New York attack thing-"

"No, no, no, you're not going to help me fight, you have a daughter for Christ's sake!" Tony responded and picked up a marble vase before shrugged and putting it back. "I need you to help me locate a man. His name is Doctor Stephen Strange."

"Who?"

"You know, renowned neurosurgeon, can perform these stupid magic tricks-"

"I can do that too." Scott replied as he got to his feet. Then, he casually grabbed a card out of what seemed to seem his sleeve. "See, magic."

"No, real magic. Like the kind that can make dulipcates of yourself and whatnot." Tony let out a soft sigh before looking back up at Scott. "Listen, he had this thing called a Time Stone, which can, apparently, reverse time or something. The big bad guys who attacked New York, yeah, they took him and the stone."

At his words, Scott Lang simply blinked up at Tony Stark, his hand letting go of the card before he took a step forward. "Wait a minute… You're not kidding are you…"

"Of course not!" Tony replied, his face scrunched up as he widened his arms, slighty wondering how that was so hard to comprehend.

"Like, I'd love to help, dude, but unless you need to shrink or grow something, I really can't do mu-"

"The quantum realm, I heard that you were doing tests there, which means that you have some pretty big scanners-" At his words, Scott simply took a step forward, his eyes narrowed and his face serious as he replied.

"How do you know that?"

"I have my sources, pal." Was all Tony replied with before he continued. "Anyways, those scanners must pick up some sort of… of energy signature, wasn't that how you found Janet Van Dyne." At one look at Scott's surprised face, Tony only nodded. "Yup, I know about that, you weren't very discreet, Lang. Anyways, if you could just scan a bit of the energy signature found in New York, that's all we need."

"…And why do you need it?"

"Simple, we're going to track down Strange, get the Time Stone, and live happily ever after. So are you with me, or not?" Scott stared at the genius for a minute, his eyes studying his own before he slowly, but surely began to nod his head, despite the fact that he had a feeling that he would regret it.

"Yeah… yeah… but, listen, we're going to need to invite my girlfriend too…"

* * *

 **A/N Sorry for the late update time, but with school starting back up and everything, it was just crazy. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I greatly appreciate it when you take the time out of your day to write me a beautiful review! Thank you all so much!**

 **Anyways, I hope your day has been going by amazingly!**

 **~Emily**


	8. Chapter 8

**Little Problems**

It took a bit of convincing as well as a tad of blackmailing to get the all-too-famous Hank Pym to switch his program from only tracking one type of energy to another. The entire time, he was complaining about Tony's father as if he was the same person, despite Tony's persistence to drop the subject.

When the conversation eventually curled to a halt and Pym finally reconfigured his device after a few hours, they easily managed to identify the energy source, which was quite easy, especially since there was a lot of an unknown, unique energy radiating around New York City, right where the battle was fought. With a couple of clicks of a button, Hank Pym had given Tony Stark the signature and waved him out the door.

"Please just get out of my hair, I really do need my beauty sleep." Pym mumbled as Tony nodded, just as much as pleased to get away as Hank Pym. He slipped away from the building within a couple of minutes, and once it was clear that Iron Man had left, Hank Pym took Scott Lang and Hope Pym to have a bit of a conversation.

"Today's your lucky day," Hank mumbled, his eyes mostly focused on his daughter. "You guys are going to space."

His words didn't really startle Hope, who nodded confidently, but to Scott, it was as if they told him that he was given a death wish for a crime he didn't commit. "What?"

"Space, it's obvious that those… Avengers are leaving to go there, and you're going to shrink down, get on the ship, and hitchhike with them."

"Can't we just, like, ask nicely?" Scott exclaimed as Hank shook his head

"No way, Stark would never let the two of you go out there no matter how qualified you are, trust me, I know this well enough." Hank continued before he took off his glasses and rubbed at his weary eyes before continuing. "You guys, that Thanos' character took out some of most, while unprofessional, but strongest heroes on the planet. And with the… What'd they call it, the Power gem was it?... Well, regardless, he's going to need your help, whether he knows it or not."

"But… But… Cassie-"

"Scott, this is half of the universe we're talking about here. If anything, you should be more than willing to help." At that note, Hank looked at Scott in the eye, all sorts of playfulness escaped from his eyes.

"So go get the hell packing already!"

* * *

Rose Waters was delicately walking the ship, her eyes taking in every single detail that she had already remembered. The trip to Knowhere was going to be over in less than an hour, but still, Rose found herself completely and utterly bored. She spent her time casually teleporting from room to room of the ship until her mind felt a little too dizzy. However, she made sure to avoid the room that Thanos was in, the room with a chair that was ten times the size of her.

She didn't really talk with her other brothers and sister, more onto the fact that they were torturing Doctor Strange than any real relationship issues. She didn't mind the torturing, after all, she's done it more times than she could recall, but she didn't exactly want to see the Doctor at the moment. He would only scream at her, asking her if there was a true method to her madness. And maybe even give away the fact that she attempted to help him.

So, Rose Waters just teleported from hallway to hallway, her eyes taking in every single detail as if it was just yesterday that she had been there. She bounced around for quite a bit, only staying in the room for a few seconds at the most, before disappearing once more. To her, this was her way of passing the time.

But that all came to a halt when, out of nowhere, she saw a familiar face.

Her body was lying in the air, suspended by absolutely nothing, her robotic eyes suddenly zooming in on Rose Waters as she lied in the air, her body completely and utterly broken apart so that she was in suspended animation. Everything about her looked painful.

In all honesty, Rose Waters never really liked Nebula, in fact, she didn't really like any of her siblings. There was always some sort of fight onto who could win Thanos' favor, even if it wasn't physical. And, while Rose did enjoy a bit of competition every now and then, living like that was completely exhausting.

Still, somewhere in her heart, Rose felt oddly sad for her sister, whose blue and purple face couldn't even move, her robotic eyes glaring at her, zooming in and out as if the eyes were sending different images than what were actually there.

"You're alive." Nebula whispered and Rose's eyes flickered over to the workers who tinkered with the different parts of Nebula's body, completely unfazed by Rose's sudden appearance.

"What did you do this time?" Rose whispered softly and took a step towards her. "Butchered a mission? Got too aggressive too quickly? Lost _another_ fight with Gamora-"

"Try trying to kill Thanos for a change." Nebula hissed back, her body jolting, yet eventually returning back to that same position, her one arm outstretched, the various parts sticking out like a strange puzzle.

"Now how crazy did you get in the time I was away?" Rose questioned, her eye watching Nebula's own. To her great surprise, Nebula laughed at her question. But it wasn't a warm laugh, it was cold, mechanical before, all of a sudden, it stopped to be replaced by her robotic voice.

"Ask that to Gamora, she's the one who betrayed him first." The other daughter of Thanos hissed, her teeth gritting together as Rose nodded ever so slightly.

"This is why I should never leave, you guys go completely insane without me." Rose replied matter-of-factly, her eyebrow raised when the door opened from behind her, revealing a large, bulky, purple man with a golden glove.

"Enjoying the view?" Thanos questioned and Rose didn't even miss a beat, a small smirked placed upon her fair human face.

"All too well."

* * *

The Avengers took off for the rest of the universe in the dead of the night.

It was a silent leaving, full of the heroes grabbing what they dubbed worthy and placing them delicately in the strangest places. For Tony, it was a picture of Pepper Potts, the lady who cried and begged and screamed at him for doing the unthinkable and leaving her. Again. With that, he also brought a couple more nanobots that he had made, just in case.

For Steve, it was some vibranium parts and Bucky, who he swooped up from Wakanda while Tony was out doing who knew what. The team of heroes did their best to convince the T'Challa to join them on their mission, but he ultimately refused. His place was with Wakanda, and he needed to protect it at all costs, and besides, who else would guard the world? However, that didn't mean that they couldn't give them some gifts for their journey, including plenty of vibranium weapons that would surely be useful for their journey.

Natasha hardly grabbed anything other than her weapons and an extra change of clothes, the lady not even grabbing a toothbrush for the trip. When questioned about that, Natasha simply raised an eyebrow and simply said. "We are coming back, aren't we?" Nobody responded.

Falcon had done his best to repair for his journey, but ultimately wasn't able to fit everything he deemed necessary on the spaceship. In the end, he only took a large bag or two of chips and a case of beer, figuring they would need it afterwards, while they were celebrating.

Scarlet Witch was much of the same, except she didn't take anything, insisting everything was on the Quinjet and that she was alright, her body still in burning agony from her rather harsh separation from Vision. "We'll rescue him with Strange." Everyone had reassured her, but the feeling of being away from her love for so long took a toll on her physically and mentally, all while still making her vibrant with rage.

Despite all of the insistence for War Machine to join them, however, he ultimately refused and decided to stay with T'Challa in Wakanda, insisting that Earth needed more people to protect it, just in case.

And so, after all of their final farewells, the Avengers took off for Thanos and Rose Waters, their heads held high for the destruction that was sure to follow.

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter today, I haven't had the best of inspiration lately and school has seriously taken a toll on me. I hope you enjoyed regardless!**

 **Thank you so much for all the support!**

 **~Emily**


	9. Chapter 9

**Spaces Between Trust**

The Ashardians and Bruce landed on Earth barely two hours after the Avengers had left in their fight for Dr. Strange. They had landed in Norway, in the same field that Odin had spent his last few, precious moments in. The moment that their ship touched the ground, everyone practically trampled over one another, after all, most scared, excited, or curious to see what Midgard really was. After all, most haven't even been to Midgard before and had just heard stories about the strange place from Thor.

"Where are these hot dogs you previously spoke of, Thor?" Heimdall questioned, his stomach growling along with everyone else's.

"Those are located in New York City." Thor replied, his eyes taking in the scenery. The entire sight made Thor's heart grow heavy in guilt for what had happened to his Father just days ago. "We need to go there regardless, I must alert the Man of Iron on our return...Do you know how to get there, Banner?"

Everyone's eyes glanced over at the mortal man nearby. The moment that they had crossed the world's atmosphere, the Hulk shifted into Banner, almost insulted that they would dare to bring him back to the place he hated. The move was alright for Bruce, however, who was more than happy to finally be back on his own planet. He was currently pacing back and forth.

"We need to alert the Avengers in case, well, Hela somehow survived so we can be prepared... And to tell everyone that Loki is back on Earth..." Banner muttered underneath his breath as he glanced at the hundreds of hungry Asgardians refugees. "And get these people some food..."

"Already done!" Shouted one of the Asgardians, who had chopped up some random cattle nearby. "Thor, mind giving up a bit of electricity to roast this good thing?"

With a little zap of lightning from Thor's fingertips, a fire was made and contained for the Asgardians to begin roasting the cattle. They even brought some salt and pepper from the ship for taste.

"I'm surprised that our friends haven't joined us already." Thor stated as he crossed his arms. He was still trying to get used to only having one eye, and Banner was still concerned that it might be infected despite the fact that Thor claimed that Asgardians 'don't get silly, mortal infections'. "You know, it's not often when I stop by Midgard, and typically, I get a... bigger party of my arrival."

At his words, Loki rolled his eyes before he noticed sparks of gold out of nowhere. Before long, a large circle was practically cut into the air, revealing none other than Wong, who payed practically no attention to Loki and looked straight at Thor. Meanwhile, Bruce stood there, dumbfounded at what had just happened and began mumbling underneath his breath on how this was totally breaking the laws of physics. And the laws of... of laws for that matter.

"Heyyy, I know you!" Thor exclaimed and before Wong could get a word out, Thor wrapped an arm around his shoulders, as if they were old friends. "You... You're friends with Wizard Strange man! How has your day been? Do you have any more infinite liquor to help tide over my people? We've had quite the long day if I do say so myself-"

"What happened?" Wong whispered, completely down to business. He couldn't just... take care of hundreds of random Asgardians who were known for their... mighty appetites.

"Ah, just a bit of family drama." Thor replied and gave a smile. "but that's all settled, because tonight, we celebrate for our victory!"

"There is no celebrating tonight." Wong whispered. "There's been an invasion."

The smile on Thor's face faded almost immediately at his words and a look of worry creased his features. "So soon?"

A soft nod came from Wong, this time his eyes focused only on Loki. "Yes, from a man named... Thanos."

That was all it took for Loki to widen his eyes and immediately wave his hands at the remaining Asgardians, who simply wrinkled their foreheads in confusion. "EVERYONE, PLEASE GET BACK ONTO THE SPACESHIP, WE NEED TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!" The King of Mischief screamed as the Asgardians flinched and took a step back. But none went back to the ship, everyone on standby for what their King would want them to do.

Thor's response was hardly a mutter to his brother. Barely a whisper. "You know Thanos?" Loki gulped at the name, at memories that came associated with it.

"He's the... the man who found me years ago... the one who let me use the Mind Stone to invade New York... But that doesn't matter! What does matter, is that he'll murder me, you, and everyone he can get his hands on! We need to leave this planet immediately!"

"Wait what?" Bruce questioned, his eyes widening at the thought of being, well, murdered. Not to mention everyone he knew being murdered.

"Actually, he'll only murder half of everyone according to a girl... though, I'm unsure now if she's trustworthy since she did recently stab the Sorcerer Supreme..." Wong muttered underneath his breath as Thor widened his eyes.

"Someone stabbed Dr. Strange? Is he okay? Who is this girl?" Thor whispered, suddenly concerned. He knew first hand just how powerful Strange was and the idea of someone, much less a _girl_ as Wong had described being able to stab him... She must've been a hell of a girl...

"I don't know if he's okay!" Wong snapped at Thor. "That's why I'm panicking! This world is unguarded without our Sorcerer Supreme! He was brought into the sky by some sort of spacecraft..." He shook his head at the thought, of how he just had to stand there helpless to do anything else. "And the girl... the girl's name was... was Rose Waters."

And at the mention of the name, Loki flinched.

 _Oh, Rosie..._ He thought to himself. _What have you done?_

* * *

It only took about four hours for the Avengers to turn their ship around back to Earth. It was four hours of slowly beginning to realize that their plan couldn't possibly work. After all, they didn't even scratch the surface of the amount of technology they would need to fly all the way to Thanos and the sudden idea of leaving the Earth alone and vulnerable suddenly shocked them all back to their senses. So, they all made the unanimous decision to fly back to Earth, until, of course, Iron Man spotted a strange space craft leave an asteroid near Mars.

And began to race towards the group.

* * *

Rose Waters had the honor of stabbing the Collector.

She enjoyed it, but not in a psychotic, insane type of way. She enjoyed it because she finally got the man to shut up. She absolutely despised his whining and pleas for her to 'let him live' and what not. How he pleaded and cried in his pitiful, unmanly way, begging to trade fortunes of the biggest magnitudes in exchange for his life. She ended up stabbing him in the chest, where she got to watch the red blood drip from her metal sword onto the ground all while Thanos started to admire the newly added red stone glimmer in the light.

She didn't really have an opinion on killing anymore. In the past, she used to love it more than she loved to breathe. It made her feel accomplished because she believed in it, believed in what it stood for. She truly thought that by stabbing the being in front of her, hundreds, if not, thousands of others would be able to live a better, prosperous life. That by stealing thousands away from their families and lives, she would be granting millions a better one. After all, why would one want a life where all you can do is fight for the scraps?

It was what she was raised believing and she didn't think twice about it. Killing people made her feel like a savior, like the universe's angel. It made her feel like a person who will do what it has to take, like the person with the strongest will-power of them all. Almost like a God.

But that was before she learned just how it felt to have life practically ripped out of her soul. Before she learned what it was like to lose everything. Before she learned just what it meant to kill.

She didn't like killing anymore, but she didn't hate it either. She was emotionless about it. To her, it just felt like a job, like the cycle of life. Life comes and life goes and what's wrong with her pushing on that cycle?

"Where's the other stone?" Thanos growled, his eyes glaring around at the rest of the junkyard of the planet. Somewhere in the distance, there lied the screams and shrieks of men, women, and children as the rest of the Children of Thanos began doing their work. Rose wondered if they still enjoyed it in the same, almost obsessive way that she did.

Thanos' eyes snapped to Rose, his voice low and haunty. "Where is the Space Stone?"

Rose's eyes flickered up to Thanos, her brilliant blue eyes emotionless. The dagger in her hand disappeared to be placed in the Weapons Room, despite the fact that she knew that the blood would drip absolutely everywhere. Not like the Weapons Room didn't already have enough stains to rival a garbage bag.

"I feel no presence of the stone anywhere on this planet... nor galaxy." She replied simply, her voice monotone. Thanos grit his teeth at her statement, completely trusting his once lost child. It wasn't like Rose was lying either the Space Stone wasn't located anywhere near Knowhere. "He must have sold it before we had the chance to take it. We should search for it, it would make the remainder of the trip much less painless."

"I think that he didn't sell it." Thanos replied simply and squinted his eyes at the remainder of the planet. "I feel that he might've... never retrieved it from Loki in the first place."

Rose Waters quirked her head at the thought, her lightening blond hair swishing behind her. "That could be a possibility." She replied, her voice simple. "Then we should interrogate the Asgardians."

"Correct." Thanos replied simply before he stuck his arm out. "Take me back to the ship."

Rose placed her hand on his skin, taking note on how dry it was. How scaly and cold it felt, yet still completely bound by muscle. This is why he used to keep her practically glued by his side. Why she was his most valuable asset. If there was impossibly a fight that he couldn't win, or if he just needed to go somewhere quickly, he would tell her to teleport him to the sight. And Rose would do it, she's been doing it for as long as she could remember. She could it before she learned how to talk, before she even learned just what she was doing.

This time, it was nothing different. She teleported him to the ship, and took a step back, letting the alien tell the crew on their next stop.

They were going to have a chat with the Asgardians.

* * *

 **Welp, it's here. Sorry for the long wait, (and btw, I'm not dead) and yes, I UPDATED. HALLELUJAH!**

 **But, once again, sorry for the wait. I hope you guys will stick around for the next part! And also, please, please, please post a review! The whole reason I keep on writing is because of those little reviews that literally make my day!**

 **Review. Follow. Favourite. Share.**

 **~Emily**


	10. Chapter 10

**Visionaries**

Rose Waters appeared at her base on one of the asteroids. She used to be in her bedroom and didn't think twice about leaving her ship, after all, nobody dared to disturb one of Thanos' prized children. The base was exactly as lifeless as she had previously left it, everything placed carefully in their original spot. Once there, Rose flicked her wrist, her eyes closed in concentration. When she opened them, her prized Tesseract lied in the palm of her hand.

The blue power sparkled before her, it's power practically surging through her veins. Before she had the time to comprehend her actions, an almost sadistic smile appeared on her face, everything about the Tesseract simply bringing a gleam of joy throughout her body.

"Now what?" A voice spoke up, shocking Rose out of her trance. Almost on instinct, Rose Waters flicked her wrist, the Tesseract now disappearing into the air. Chills ran up and down her arms as she turned to the direction of the noise only to face the android she had captured and chained, his Mind Stone still lodged in his head.

She could tell that he wanted to ever so desperately shoot her with the great power of the Mind Stone, but she knew he couldn't. She severed the connection so that he couldn't access it. That, or he didn't want to risk puncturing another hole into her little base.

"Oh," Rose Waters responded and casually raised an eyebrow, keeping her cool. "You."

"Is Wanda safe?" He whispered softly. She could tell that he had stopped trying to escape from the bonds that held him long ago. After all, if she couldn't break them, she was practically certain that nobody could. Not even a machine.

"She's fine." Rose Waters replied, despite the fact that she had almost no idea onto who he was referring to, though, she suspected it to be the redhead girl. "How are you doing?"

"Besides being locked and captured against my will, splendid." Vision hissed as Rose took soft, deliberate steps towards the android, a soft grin appearing on her face as she swiped some stray, blond hair behind her ear.

"There's an escape pod in the other room." She whispered softly, her hands reached the back of the colourful machine's head. With soft, expert movements, she connected a few wires. "It's programmed to go to two places, Earth or Xandar." A click of a few buttons that swirled a light within Visions' eyes. The Mind Stone was connected. "Xandar, is currently decimated. All that's left is half the population and broken hearts."

She stood up and could see the decisions desperately trying to be made in Visions' eyes onto whether to shoot her or not. Then, with a simple wave of her hand, the chains binding his hands appeared helplessly in the palm of hers.

"Why are you doing this?" Vision whispered softly as he slowly, but surely, stood up, unsure if this was a trick or not. Just a few... hours ago she was determined to capturing him and now, she was just letting him off the hook? No, this couldn't be true, there had to be a trap of some sort.

"Plans change, machine." Rose responded as she dropped the chains to the ground, it's thud echoing across the room. "Just like you, I'm tired of being a trained monkey. Of being a slave for something I never got the choice in."

A sudden fury burst into Rose's eyes, the icy blueness in her eyes intensifying as she clenched her fists. A surge of anger, hatred, and pure and utter disgust filled every fibre of her being as she continued to spit out words.

"Of being a monster, of being feared."

And just like that, it disappeared. Rose's posture softened, the feelings that once stood so prominently in her heart disappeared and then there was nothing. She felt absolutely nothing, the immense hatred gone before she had time to truly comprehend it.

"But make no mistake, android." Rose whispered softly and threw a dagger from her hand. Vision flinched, suddenly realizing just how vulnerable he was. The vibranium hadn't repaired itself so he couldn't phase through anything. One good throw at his head would leave him dead.

But the dagger didn't go to his head. Instead, it went to the stacks of boxes right by his head, going right through the one of the boxes of steel.

"I'm not dying for your little cause." She hissed and took a step backward before she practically blinked out of existence, leaving Vision on his own in her little base.

However, instead of walking straight to the escape pod, Vision first searched the entire base. He saw that girl with the Tesseract, he knew that it could be hidden somewhere. Vision knew that that Tesseract was the real deal, he could feel it. The Stone lodged in his forehead told him so. But the Mind Stone didn't tell him that it wasn't in the base. He just... couldn't feel the presence of another stone so near. So, after deciding that it was all clear, he went over to the steel boxes and looked for the dagger, figuring that he should have at least one weapon to help him on his journey.

The dagger went through two and a half plates of steel before being lodged halfway through another piece, which he had to spend a bit of time wiggling out. However, once he did pull it out, he realize that there was a little engraving on the dagger. A note written that stayed still despite all of the bloodshed that must've been put through it.

 _B_ _e Strong. Be Fearless._ _Be Merciless._

The saying bugged him a little, but he payed no attention and went to the escape pod. After a bit of searching to make sure that Rose Waters didn't rig the machine to send him to the Sun or to self destruct, he pressed the coordinates for Earth and went on his merry way.

That is, until he spotted a ship fly in the exact same direction.

At first, a spike of fear went through Vision's heart. Were more of... her coming? People of her species, the ones who can teleport? Are they going to take over and force the human race on their knees.

But no, the colour scheme of the ship seemed oddly familiar, and the closer he was almost drawn to it, he noticed that there was a signature A on it as well which made his eyes widen.

The Avengers ship.

Almost immediately, he pressed his fingers against his ear piece and spoke up, praying that it would still work, though, he was quite unsure.

"Hello? Captain? Falcon? Widow?" He questioned, only to be met by silence. "Please, don't engage. It's me, Vision. Please don't shoot me down."

Once again, silence, which sent a spike of fear through Vision's system. He was going to be shot down. Shot down by his own teammates, his own friends.

"Wanda?" He whispered softly.

Another moment of silence, this time lasting a thousand years.

And then, another voice to meet it.

"Vision?"

* * *

Rose Waters landed back in her room soundlessly, a bit exhausted from the trip. After all, travelling a few galaxies isn't exactly the easiest thing for her body to handle.

She sat down on her bed and let out a soft sigh before glancing at what remained of her room. It was nothing more that a bed harder than stone, a small desk full of polishing metals and rocks, and dozens of her pick of swords, spears, knifes and the works. Some of them still had blood stains on them, but most of them were dusty and untouched. After all, Rose Waters had her favorites when it came to her weaponry.

In the corner of her eye, she spotted the sword that she had used just a few hours ago. Obviously, some servants had cleaned it and moved the item from the weapons room to her bedroom. It looked practically brand new, with it's polished finish and beautiful curve. It caught her sight almost immediately, her being almost gravitating towards it as she took sword off of the wall.

It looked so new, so fresh. Almost innocent in a sense, despite it's harsh glare and sharp metal. Her eyes wandered from the grip to the tip of it, everything seemingly in perfect condition. As if thousands of being's blood hadn't stained the surface.

The thought didn't disgust Rose Waters in the slightest. Instead, it only made her rather nostalgic of the memories embedded within the metal. Memories not about ruthlessly murdering millions, but memories about how she felt in that one moment. How she felt as if she was a savior, the galaxy's hero. As if she had saved the universe.

It was then, when Rose Waters was interrupted with a strange alarm. Her ears perked up and within a moment, she teleported towards the main hall, her sword still in her hand. With a quick flick of her wrist, the sword went to it's place behind her back before she grabbed a worker by his collar.

"What's happening?" She hissed, her mouth close to his ear as spit flew onto his skin. He barely even flinched.

"Nebula has escaped, Miss. Waters." He replied as Rose Waters shoved him out of her face. He scurried away, almost not even effected by the encounter. Almost.

Without another moment to waste, Rose Waters teleported from room to room on the ship. It only took twenty seconds to find Nebula, who was fending herself off of eight guards who attempted to end her.

Rose Waters grabbed her sister by the collar and teleported them to another room.

The moment that Nebula had realized what had happened, her sword in her hand was raised in a fighting stance, her robotic eyes wide with hatred.

"Fight me!" She screamed, her little amount of veins left almost popping out of her body. "FIGHT ME LIKE HOW HE TRAINED US, YOU COWARD!"

And it was then when metal started to wrap around Nebula, the metal twisting and turned by the works of Ebony Maw, who simply tsked at the two young ladies. In the background lurked Dr. Strange, who looked as if there wasn't much left in him before the end would strike. Maw had certainly done his job well, but the Stone still hadn't been retrieved.

"Nebula." Maw hissed as he walked up his sibling. "You came all this way to spend your last moments with me?"

He levitated a piece of metal and tightened it so it looked like a long dagger. A smile, twisted and hauntingly empty, appeared on his pale face as he spoke the next words.

"I'm honored."

And it was then, when a sword went through Ebony Maw's throat, dropping him dead.

But it didn't come from Nebula. It came from Rose Waters, who easily pulled the sword out of his throat and dropped it on the ground, his blood pooling on the ground as she watched almost in curiosity as Nebula fell to the ground, the metal finally releasing her as she took in deep breaths. Once Rose Waters was sure that she was alright, she went over to the Doctor and glanced at his heavily bruised face and body.

Suddenly, his cloak appeared and wrapped protectively the Doctor's Body before it lifted him up, as if trying to protect him from the harm that may come.

"You... You saved me." Nebula whispered softly, her eyes only on the alien who lay dead at her feet.

"Thank me later."

* * *

 **DUN DUN DUNNN! Kindof a cliffhanger, but I just hop you'll stick around for the next chapter :)**

 **Thank you for all of the amazing reviews! They seriously never fail to brighten my day!**

 **Review. Favourite. Follow. Share.**

 **~Emily**


	11. Chapter 11

**Children and Thanos**

Vision had carefully explained what had happened as they made their course back to Earth which stood almost hauntingly in the distance. Great white clouds coated its surface, barely any green nor blue peeking through the thick atmosphere. Wanda was practically clutching to his arm as he told his story while everyone paid close attention to every last single detail.

"That doesn't make sense." Tony Stark stated the moment the android had finished. "Why did she take you only to... to send you back to Earth?"

"She told me that 'plans change'." Vision replied, the Mind Stone standing in his forehead sending a sudden foreign feeling of pain through his wires. He clenched his forehead with his free hand as Wanda stared worryingly at his pained expression. "I know no more than you, Stark."

"Is everything alright?" Steve Rogers questioned, standing on the opposite side as Tony to avoid all confrontation with the man. "You seem..."

"Uneasy?" Vision finished, his eyes flickering up at the Captain. "Just a tad. It's... It's just this damn stone." Another sudden hitch of pain attacked his sensors as he shuddered a little.

"Maybe she damaged some of the programming?" Wanda offered as Vision shook his head, his body twitching as he continued to hold onto his torn, damaged body, which Tony had promised to repair the second they landed back on Earth.

"No, it feels like... like the stone is... intentionally causing the pain." He shut his eyes before continuing. "As if it's... it's trying to warn me about something."

"About that?" Spoke up Natasha, immediately causing everyone to glance over at where the Black Widow was referring to.

And their hearts stopped when they spotted a ship that must've been at least the size of a country making it's way towards them, it's dark and ominous presence almost sucking all sense of hope out of the ship.

"Yes, that might be it."

* * *

Rose Waters was casually lying in her bed when Thanos showed up.

He walked into her room with purpose in his every step, a sharp look of anger and... slight betrayal apparent within his dark pupils as Rose Waters shifted into a better position to look at him properly. Within his left hand lied the Infinity Gauntlet.

And in his right hand was her sword that had murdered Maw.

"Explain." Thanos spoke rather harshly, his voice booming throughout the small room as he threw her prized sword onto the ground, staining Maw's still wet blood all over the ground. Rose Water's eyes flickered from the sword on the ground to her Father's face, but her eyes didn't even seem to hold the sense of fear, or, for that matter, any emotion in general. It was as if she was a lifeless mannequin.

"What?" Rose Waters questioned softly, which only seemed to enrage Thanos even further.

"I trusted you!" He yelled, the Power Stone that lied in his glove glittering into life. Rose's eyes glanced over at the stone, her entire being almost drawn to it. "I made you into the person you are today! Everything you have right now is because of me! Your status, your power, your ability, you skills, they're all because of me! Because I took pity on you when you were nothing, only to receive this... betrayal in return!" Then his voice turned into something no more than a whisper. A whisper that would forever drag goosebumps towards even a man of steel. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't end you right now."

"You didn't give me my ability." Rose Waters replied rather calmly her eyes glancing up at the Mad Titans'. "You helped me cultivate it. Helped me learn about how to hone it." _Helped turn me into a weapon._

"Only to murder Maw and help one of my stones to run free!" Thanos snarled as Rose Waters only wrinkled her forehead in confusion.

"What?" She questioned, sounding genuinely confused, as if this information was new to her. But her voice didn't turn into a squeak, it simply stayed flat. Practically lifeless. "Maw is dead?"

"Of course he is! You helped murder him!" Thanos screamed as all of the stones on his glove flickered to life. "This sword was found next to his body!You killed him right before you helped Nebula escape!"

"I did no such thing." Rose Waters responded and scowled at the thought.

"Don't lie to me!" Roared Thanos, this time finally causing Rose Waters to flinch. "I didn't raise a liar!"

"I don't lie!" Lied Rose Waters as she suddenly stood up, her eyes blaring in fury. "If I did kill Maw, then why would I stay here!"

There was half a second of silence, just enough time to let Rose Waters know that Thanos considered the story, before she continued.

"There's a million and two places I could go to with a flick of my wrist." Rose Waters whispered, her voice low. "At least a million, and if I wanted to, I could go to all of them without another thought. If I killed Maw, then I should be dozens of systems away from you." She clenched her jaw and took a breath. "But I'm not. I'm not on another planet, system, or even in a different room. I'm not teleporting, not running right at this moment because you and I both know that _I'm innocent_."

"I'm disgusted that you would even think that of me!" Rose Waters spat out, her expressions suddenly morphing into pure fury. "After all we've been through, after all that _I've done for you..._ After I just spent the past year trying to find you, you're willing to turn on me just like that!"

Rose Waters turned around and faced her wall of weaponry before she puffed out an exhale. She could just feel that the stones were no longer glowing as Thanos began to think it through. She didn't know if she had convinced him or not and half thought to teleport away before she took another chance. Her little home of a base didn't sound too bad right around now.

But then his voice appeared in her ear. No more than a whisper, his spit flying all around her earlobe which sent a shiver through Rose Water's spine.

"Never." He grunted out, his tone sounding like death itself. Not like that scared Rose Waters anymore. "Speak. To. Me. Like. That. _Again."_

As if just to make sure that his message was clear, he grabbed Rose's thin arm and squeezed tightly. So tightly, that she felt the blood circulation cut off almost immediately before he let go and walked out of the room. The moment she knew he was gone, Rose Waters shut her eyes and let out the softest of exhales. She was safe, but the trust... the trust and respect that Thanos once had for her was gone. She would have to do something big to earn it back, and she didn't think that she had it in her to do anything for him ever again.

With a simple blink, Rose Waters faced her bed, a solemn expression on her face before she noticed the sword still lying on her steel bedroom floor. Without another moment of hesitation, she leaned over and picked it up, the handle familiar within her sweaty palms. With her bare hands, she smeared the blood off of the metal, causing it to drip all over the floor and her hand, leaving only shiny, silver metal. But her eyes weren't on the metal. No, they were on her hands, on the dark blood that coated it.

"Since when did you get so good at lying?" A voice questioned, causing the sword to be drawn, the tip almost pressing against the invaders throat without Rose Waters even looking up from her hand.

When Rose Water's eyes flickered up at the intruder, it was only to face Proxima Midnight, the last lady left on the Black Order. Her ghostly white skin almost seemed to glow in her room.

"Get. Out." Rose Waters hissed, her eyes showing that she truly wasn't playing any games. However, when Proxima Midnight didn't move an inch, Rose Waters narrowed her eyes and pressed her sword against her throat a little more, only to have Proxima Midnight to calmly move the sword out of her way. Surprisingly, Rose Waters let her.

"I never asked, just what did you do when you were on Terra?" Proxima questioned as she leaned in closer to her face. "You don't seem to have a hard time remembering the ships layout, and it seems quite easy for you to jump from system to system."

"I was looking for the Time Stone." Rose Waters whispered through gritted teeth as she narrowed her eyes at the opposing lady.

"Uh-huh," Proxima responded, her face crawling closer and closer to Rose's. "And what else, _Rosie?_ Did you take some pictures as a tourist? Did you finally get to relish being so close to your pathetic, useless species-"

Rose Waters stood up, her sword falling onto her bed as she grabbed Proxima Midnight by the chin, her eyes burning in the color of early dawn. "I'm not repeating myself. _Get. Out."_ Her spit splat onto Proxmia's cheek as Proxima simply grabbed her hand off of her chin and gently stroked it. For someone who murdered more than Rose Waters may ever see, her hands were surprisingly soft.

"Father might think that you're still the sweet, obedient blooming little Rose that he knew." A sneer appearing on Proxima's face as she rested her hand on Rose Water's pale cheek. Her fingers were still wet with Maw's blood from Rose's own hand. Rose flinched and took a step back. "But you changed, Waters, and I know you killed Maw."

Proxima Midnight took a step back into the darkness before she spoke up again, a nefarious, sadistic grin still on her face.

"And I'm going to prove it."

* * *

"Board the ship." Thanos spoke up as all of his children gathered around him to look at the ship with the red A glowing on it. "There's... power in it. A stone... I can feel it."

"Shall we go give them a fair welcoming, Father?" Corvus Glaive questioned before Thanos gave them a quick nod for a yes. They all began to walk towards the boarding ship before Thanos spoke up.

"Rose shall stay here."

Rose paused as everyone raced off, her head slowly turning to face Thanos, who still stared out into the view of space. Somewhere in the distance lied Earth, which Rose Waters did her best not to look at. She knew first hand just what was going to happen when they landed on it.

"Do you know what your Terra name was?" Thanos whispered, causing Rose to visibly tense up. But her reply as quick and fluid, as if the subject wasn't touchy at all.

"No, sire." She truthfully replied, her hands behind her back as she stood by his side.

"Me neither." He responded, his eyes still only on the view outside. "So when Proxima found you with that... that power as nothing more than a toddler, I was the one who received the honor to name you." He must've said this story at least a thousand times, but he just loved it when Rose Waters listened along.

"I know." Rose Waters responded, her voice fleeting at the end of her sentence. She almost asked for the conversation to cease, but Thanos continued before she got the chance to interrupt. And there was no stopping him in the midst of a story.

"At first, I didn't know what to call you." He shifted his gaze over to Rose Waters, who still only paid attention to the window, yet, she was fully aware that Thanos was staring at her. "You weren't like the rest of them. You were scared, quiet, and seemed to have no sense of what anger meant. Graceful in a sense. That is until we trained you, that's when you became ruthless."

"So it was Rose. A simple Terran name for the most unTerrain being in the galaxy. Graceful and beautiful, yet it'll cause you immense pain if you come too close. Rose. Waters for the family name, because we are the element that helped you blossom into the young lady you are today."

Rose Waters blinked and nodded ever so slightly.

"Make sure you're worthy of your name, Rose Waters."

"Don't fail me."

* * *

 **Early update thanks to all your reviews for motivating the heck out of me!**

 **I hope you all enjoyed!**

 **Review. Favorite. Follow. Share.**

 **~Emily**


	12. Chapter 12

**The Fall of the Brave (Pt. 1)**

"You know her, don't you." Thor whispered to Loki as they stood in the Sanctum that Wong had brought them to. The rest of the Asgardians were still in Norway, being lead elegantly by Valkerie, whose first instruction was to find the nearest pub, and Heimdall, who had to take a break. Something was wrong in the universe, something serious that gave him a headache to even try to see. He was currently attempting to figure out just what was happening. "That... Rose Waters girl, right?"

In response to his words, Loki simply shrugged, his arms casually crossed over as Wong looked at some strange hologram with Bruce close by, his eyes trying to figure out just how the technology worked. The two could see his mouth moving, desperate to ask questions only for none of them to be answered.

"Know is a loose term." Loki replied simply. "I prefer 'acquainted' or-"

"When?" Thor immediately questioned, cutting him off. "Was it when..." his brother bit his lip, a little scared to finish the thought as Loki simply nodded and attempted to explain himself.

"When Thanos took me in, Rose was given the task to make sure that I could be... trusted..." The man of mischief's words trailed off as he shook his head. "Frankly, I don't remember much about what happened... It was years ago now..."

"Yet you recall her name like an old friend," Thor spoke up and raised an eyebrow. "As if you know her."

"She was a child, hardly nine years old." Loki said defensively. "Anyone can get to know a child."

Thor opened his mouth to give his argument when Wong spoke up, drawing the attention of the two brothers.

"Excuse me, but there's something that's actually serious going on here." Wong pointed towards a large grey blob that seemed to be closing in on Earth. "There... appears to be company-and it doesn't seem to be the good kind."

The two brothers walked over to the large hologram, only for Loki's eyes to widen at the sight of the large, familiar ship. "That's... That's his ship. Thanos' ship."

"I know, it came here before when it took the Doctor." Wong replied, which made Loki wrinkle his forehead in confusion.

"And they didn't kill half the population?" Loki questioned as Wong shook his head.

"No, Thanos seemed to be in... a hurry."

"Wait, someone wanted to kill half the population?" Thor questioned as the other two promptly ignored his question. Bruce simply shook his head, as if this was slowly becoming much too much for his brilliant mind to truly comprehend. First he's on another planet, then Asgard gets destroyed, and now some alien dude wants to wipe out half of humanity?

"And Rose Waters was Earth?" Loki questioned as Wong nodded his head.

"Yes. She was the one to stab the Sorcerer Supreme as a... gift I suppose to Thanos." Wong grit his teeth together at the thought. "And this entire time she was telling us to hand over to the Time Stone to her to protect the stone from Thanos."

"She did want to protect it, you fools!" Loki suddenly cried out as he squeezed his fists together. "Rose Waters hates Thanos, she hates him more than you know!"

"It doesn't look like it-" Wong began when Loki let out a groan and began to pace back and forth.

"If she was on Thanos' side, then she wouldn't stab the Doctor!" Loki pointed out. "If the stone is truly encrypted so that only Strange can access it, she would've taken him as he was instead of injuring him! She injured him so that she could stall for more time since they need a conscious person to begin torture!" He grit his teeth together. "And knowing her, she probably laced her daggers with a sleeping agent to make sure that Strange would stay knocked out for a while."

"I thought you didn't know her!" Thor exclaimed, which Loki continued to ignore as Wong spoke up.

"You don't know that for sure!" Wong shouted as Loki shook his head back and forth.

"Yes, I do. That's why I gave her the Tesseract!"

"Wait, WHAT?" The other two shouted simultaneously as Loki let out a groan.

"You two truly are clueless!" Loki shouted as he began to walk towards the front door, Bruce quick to keep up, desperate to ask a few questions to the young prince as the other two simply stared.

"Where do you think you're going?" Wong questioned as Loki simply shook his head.

"Thano's ship should be here by now." He opened the door only to hear the screams of the public, to which he didn't flinch once. "I'm going to see Rosie."

"He so knows her." Thor mumbled underneath his breath as he and Wong quickly began to follow the prince of Asgard.

As if it was all perfect timing, Thanos' ship had arrived on Earth, it's entire, gloomy structure casting a large cloud over New York City as the trio marched toward where a large, brilliant blue light glowed onto the planet. They continued to march towards the direction before, suddenly, white gloop wrapped around Loki as a blur of red and navy blue bounced against buildings.

"I got him, don't worry, Mr. Thor!" Spider-Man shouted as he landed in front of the trio, his hands on his hips as he took a quick bow. It was then, when he noticed Bruce, to which he jumped back for a moment in disbelief, to which Bruce only shook his head at.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to Hulk-out on yo-" Banner began when Spider-Man spoke up.

"NO WAY, YOU'RE DOCTOR BANNER!" Spider-Man shouted as he took a step towards Banner, as if he would just disappear if he blinked. "I love your work in nuclear physics and I must've read your paper onto Theories of Quantum Realms at least a dozen times and I have to say-"

"Release my brother, strange specimen of tight clothes!" Thor roared as Spider-Man immediately raised his hands defensively.

"No, no, no, we can let the kid finish." Bruce replied, obviously flattered that someone payed so much attention to him and not the Hulk.

"Actually, the name's Spider-Man." Spider-Man replied and stuck out a hand, to which Thor refused to take, but the teenage superhero didn't seem too troubled by it. "And... well... isn't he the bad guy?"

"Man of Spiders, we're on an urgent mission to defeat Thanos, and my brother needs to help us! So release him... immediately!" Thor roared as Spider-Man raised his arms defensively, his usual energetic voice suddenly morphing into a whisper.

"Well, it's probably going to decompose after a few hours..." Spider-Man began as Loki rolled his eyes and flickered his hand so that the web fluid turned into spiders, which all simply crawled off of him as he began to walk away.

"I don't have the time for this, the entire universe is in jeopardy!" Loki announced as Spider-Man began to swing towards the ex-villian.

"Mr. Loki, what do you mean by universe!" Spider-Man began to scream when he slammed into Loki's now still figure as the five all suddenly stood in front of Thanos and the rest of his children, including Rose Waters.

With all of the Avengers tied up in front of them.

* * *

Taking the Avengers was a simpler task then originally expected. For starters, Thanos had a literal army, which easily overpowered the small unit. Secondly, the Avengers surrendered almost immediately.

The entire group came to the decision to surrender a little bit after they had realized that they were trapped. It was the best idea, especially since this way, they could hide Vision. After all, Thanos seemed to desperately want the Infinity Stones, so maybe if they hid the Android, then maybe they wouldn't be able to sense it. That way, Vision would sure be alive rather dead with his stone ripped from his forehead.

They stowed him away in floorboards, right with the rest of the machinery so he would be able to blend in, and surprisingly, nobody bothered to look for him, after all, the only other person who knew about Vision was Rose Waters, and why would she turn him in right after letting him out?

After the Avengers got handcuffed and escorted towards Thanos, they all had a bit of time to truly take in the architecture of the ship. It was gloomy and dark, yet sleek and fully functional. Something millions of years more advanced than them, yet, at the same time, all too simple.

"Okay, cut to the chase." Tony spoke up, his nano suit casually tucked into his arc-reactor so that everyone would think of him as defenseless. "Where's the wizard?"

"Gone." one of Thanos' children spoke up as Captain America widened his eyes in horror.

"You murdered him!" He almost screamed as one of the children shook their head.

"No. He escaped." One stated, yet, they left out the part about how one of their own helped with that.

They approached the Throne Room rather quickly, where Thanos stood with Rose Waters as his right-hand. She looked as if she had been prospering, with her white-blond hair in an intricate braid and her blue eyes almost glowing.

"The stone?" Thanos questioned as Corvus Glaive spoke up.

"We have yet to find it on any of them, but the soldiers are all searching the ship."

"I told you that I should've went." Rose Waters spoke up, not even bothered by the fact that she was out of turn. At her voice, Black Widow narrowed her eyes at the young girl. Maybe it was her hair or the now mature look in the girl's eye, but she looked older now. So much older. And sadder.

"You."

Thanos didn't even turn his head to Rose Waters before he spoke up. "Find the stone. I can sense that it's on the ship."

Rose Waters nodded her head and teleported to the landing bay before she marched into the Avengers' ship. The moment she was there, she could pinpoint exactly where the stone was, right underneath the floor, where she immediately marched to as the rest of the workers searched through the pillows on the ship, as if the Avengers would hide the precious mind stone in the cupboards next to the cereal or something.

The moment she reached for the flooring, she leaned over, ready to tell Vision that she was going to teleport him elsewhere, where it was safe. She would tell Thanos that Vision must've had the Space Stone and transported himself elsewhere, probably in another universe. Then, they would leave Earth alone. Sure, the Avengers would probably get killed, unless she could somehow teleport them all back to Earth and blame it on Vision again, but that would be inprobable to do anyway. Besides, Rose Waters didn't need the Avengers, she could do this on her own. She had to, and it helped that she's been doing it all her life.

Her plan was just about to be put into action when a sudden beam of light slammed into her stomach.

Rose Waters had been through plenty of pain in the past. She had been stabbed repeatedly, bitten, mauled, tortured, burned, shot, and left on the verge on the death dozens of time, most of which by her own siblings. But maybe it was because an Infinity Stone had hurt her, or maybe it was just because it had been so long since she last felt such intense pain, because right at that moment, she could've sworn that that was the second worse pain she's ever felt in her seventeen years.

For a single, horrifying moment, she truly thought that she was going to die.

And that scared her. That scared her more than anything else in the entire universe. _The idea of death scared her._

So, she did what anyone else would do when they were on the verge of death: she screamed. She screamed so loudly that tears started to drip from her eyes as she fell on her butt right as the floor cover got punched open and the android's hand grabbed at her, protecting his fragile, machinery with her soft skin, as if she was a little cushioning. He did it to protect himself, so nobody would shoot his all too crippled body.

And the Mind Stone. It was close, so close to Rose's brain that she had a headache. So close that she started to sob. So close that she could vividly imagine it's beam of brilliant light split her skull in half.

And before any solider could rush into the room, Rose teleported herself away, the sharp pain from her abdominal still blasting throughout all of her nerves.

She went to the first place she could think of, her room. The moment that she appeared, she ran backwards and slammed Vision into a wall, desperate to get him off of him. Desperate to get away from Death, from the pure chance of it.

But Vision hung on.

Another spike of fear raced through Rose's mind and she let out a cry, big, fat tears crawling down her cheeks as she shook her head back and forth. She hated this, she felt as if she was going to pee her pants in fear. She felt as if she was going to die, as if everything was going to end. And she wasn't ready. She would never be ready.

"Get off, get off, please get off." Rose practically begged as she blinked and appeared in the Throne Room, where, in front of Thanos, his children, and the Avengers, she let out a scream of horror as she thrashed against the machine, but his grip as solid as steel. She felt her stomach churn, everything suddenly becoming too much. The proximity of the stone, Thanos, and death all just became too much.

She blinked and appeared in another corner of the room and slammed Vision against yet another wall, yet he still didn't let go. Most people would feel nauseous from this many jumps, especially if they've never done it before, but Vision wasn't made of organic matter. He was a machine and could hold on for as long as the sun beamed light.

"GET OFF, GET THE FUCK OFF!" Rose Waters pleaded, tears continuing to fall down her face as she teleported to another section of the room.

"Are you going to do something?" Corvus Glaive questioned his master, who only narrowed his eyes as Rose Waters continued to teleport to section to section of the room.

"I don't want to rip Rose to shreds." He mumbled underneath his breath as Rose Waters teleported from section to section of the room, but Vision refused to let of his little shield. "ROSE WATERS, STAY STILL!"

But it was if all sanity had left Rose's body and all she could do was fight against the machine that possessed the power to end her life. She teleported fruitlessly from section to section of the room, each jump taking more and more energy from her until all she could do was jump barely two feet away from her. Eventually, she only blinked in and out of existence, her jumps so tiny that it was if she was standing in the same place. She had never felt so exhausted in her entire life, so helpless.

"If you hurt them, I'll kill her!" Vision screamed as Rose Waters simply faintly blinked her eyes, everything spinning as she realized that she was going at it the entirely wrong way. She closed her eyes and drew every last ounce of energy out of her body.

And then, just like that, Vision was gone, teleported away with the last bit of everything that was left in Rose's body as she was finally free to collapse on the ground, her red blood pooling on the ground as the world turned black around her.

* * *

 **IT'S FRIDAY!**

 **Is it just me, or did it feel like this week lasted forever? Speaking of length, that's an extra long chapter for you. Did you like this style more, or do you guys think that shorter, more frequent chapters are better?**

 **Review. Favourite. Follow. Share.**

 **Love ya bunches,**

 **~Emily**


	13. Chapter 13

**The Fall of the Brave (Pt. 2)**

 _Loki had been sitting in the room tied to a chair for thirteen hours._

 _He didn't mind sitting for so long, and in a way, it was actually nice. It gave him time to clear his mind of the raging, confusing thoughts that occupied it. Loki was still so, so confused about what had happened. First Thor is banished, then he finds out that he's adopted and he tried to destroy Jotenheim... Then he let go of Thor._

 _Loki still didn't quite know why he let go of Thor. Was it out of fear of what Odin would do to him? Or out of shame for what he had done? Even after thirteen hours of being alone to his thoughts with the question ringing constantly in his mind, he still couldn't quite figure it out._

 _And then the door opened. At the mere noise, Loki sat up straighter, his eyes wide as he anticipated his fate to arrive. Thanos was going to judge him if he was worthy or not to be on his side. If he was, then perhaps he could truly build a crown for himself... but if he wasn't, then death would be certain._

 _Loki couldn't lie, the testing scared him. After all, he didn't mix very well with worthiness._

 _However, instead of a large, purple giant approaching him, it was instead a small, slim built child who walked up to him. She was pretty, with these large, brilliant blue eyes and pale skin. Long, lightning blond hair was tied into a careful french braid, with strands casually poking out. Despite her innocent, full features however, something about her seemed off. The innocence that she should've possessed was stripped away from her eyes._

 _Her body was practically dripped in black cloth and silver metal. Her lips and eyes had a stern, unfeeling expression and despite her obvious small age and short height, it was obvious that mentally, she was a middle aged lady._

 _Still, Loki couldn't help but laugh at the sight of her. He didn't really want to, but he couldn't help it. She was just so funny with such a serious expression, it just looked strange and oddly humorous on her soft features._

 _But before another giggle could leave Loki's mouth, a sword was immedaitely in the young girl's hand and the tip of it was pressed against the God's pale neck, ceasing any sense of laughter from leaving his vocal cords._

 _"Laugh again, and this sword will be more than familiar to you." The girl hissed, her voice almost deathly low for a child. Loki nodded frantically, suddenly remembering who he was dealing with. This wasn't just a child, this was Thano's child. Probably not a biological one, but nonetheless, she was trained mericlessly by him. She was lethal, a weapon._

 _After a minute of her sword almost digging deeper into Loki's throat, the girl with lightning blond hair flicked her wrist and the sword returned to her belt. She then took a slow walk around Loki, admiring him. Judging him. A little girl circling a tied up God, who would've thunk it._

 _"You're too skinny to be a warrior." She whispered harshly, her eyes full of calculations. "And too soft to be a general." Her hand suddenly grabbed Loki's throat, her skin cold to the touch as he felt his skin prickle. Her lips ghosted his ear as she spoke. "What do you do that can serve Thanos' glorious army?"_

 _At her question, Loki simply grinned and flicked his own wrist. Within a moment, the chains that once bound him turned into wine as he immediately made a dagger appear in his hand and pressed it against Rose Water's throat, a mischievous grin on his face. "I'm the-" He began when the girl simply grabbed at his arm and pressed his face to the ground before grabbing his knife and pressing it against his own neck._

 _"Your fighting technique is weak." She critiqued in a low whisper. "Your form is horrendous and you spend much too long talking." She straightened her back as she clenched the dagger in her hand. She liked it._

 _"Could say the same for you." Loki mumbled as the clone beneath the girl suddenly disappeared and the real Loki grabbed her by her neck._

 _But only a low chuckle left the nine-year-old's throat as she gave him a grin. But the grin didn't seem to belong to someone so young. It looked like it belonged to a serial killer. To a mad man. But it made sense, she was raised by one after all._

 _"A trickster." She whispered softly as she kicked at his shin, causing him to spiral down in pain. "I think you could provide some use to Thanos."_

 _She casually stepped over Loki and tilted to her head to the side, her blue eyes sparkling as a wide, tight, almost sadistic smile spread across her delicate features._

 _"My name is Rose Waters. And I have a feeling that we'll be seeing eachother very, very often, jester."_

 _And then she was gone. As if her being had disappeared into thin air._

* * *

Nebula had taken a ship and put the Doctor on life support. His breathing had finally become stable and his wounds were healing for the past four hours since she had taken the ship. By now, almost all of his bones were put in the right place and his major veins, arteries, muscles and tissues have rebuilt itself with the help of some alien technology.

She had just spent the past amount of time attempting to contact the Guardians. She didn't really have much faith that any of them could really help, except for Gamora or Mantis, but, frankly, she was just desperate for any help she could get. However, the Guardians seemed to be taking their sweet time waiting to reply. They must've been blasting some 'eighties bop' as Quill had called it.

And then, out of nowhere, a coded transcript had come back.

Almost immediately, Nebula got up and began to decode the message, her robotic eyes doing practically all of the work as real words began to form, saying that they had received the message and were heading for Earth now, despite Quill's complaints. At the sight, a slight grin landed on Nebula's face. She could almost hear the conversation ringing in her ears. Quill screaming about how that was where his mother had died and he could never go back and Gamora slapping some sense into him by saying that the fate of the universe was at stake because he couldn't let go of something that happened over thirty years ago.

Nebula admitted it to herself; the two made a nice couple.

And it was then, when a voice croaked behind her.

"Where are we?"

Slowly but surely, Nebula turned around to see the Doctor, who had somehow escaped his medical pod and was now on his feet, still a bit wobbly, with two glowing, orange circles made in his hands.

"On a ship. Heading to Terran." She replied simply, her robotic voice sending shivers up the Doctor's spine. "Or, Earth, as you called it."

At her reply, Doctor Strange simply narrowed his eyes at the machine.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" He whispered harshly as the machine simply raised her eyebrows.

"I was trained by Thanos for practically my entire life, I've killed more people than you have ever seen in your lifetime. If you somehow managed to get through me, then I'll have you know that we're on a ship that I bet you don't know how the hell to operate and we're in a system that you can't even pronounce the name of."

Nebula spun around and sat in her chair, the bright stars flashing by her eyes.

"You don't know that I'm telling the truth, Sorcerer. But you and I both know that you don't have a choice to trust me."

* * *

Rose Waters tried to not show that she was injured.

She had just had at least a boatload of antibiotics and painkillers pumped into her body as well as her blood. A large bandaid was wrapped around her torso, but she could still feel a bit of her blood seeping through. They had stitched and fixed up Rose Waters as much as they could in the alotted time frame, so they couldn't exactly rebuild her entire stomach and intestines. But they make her feel considerably better.

Still, there was a slight numb in her torso and her mind didn't nearly feel as sharp as it usually did.

The Avengers were all tied up in the same, practically unbreakable metal that Rose Waters had once imprisoned Vision in. They were pretty much on display to the world, kind of showing just how weak they were. Rose Waters could hear Tony Stark mumble about how bad this would be for his rep to Black Widow, who simply rolled her eyes at him.

"The strongest you have to offer have fallen!" Thanos shouted as he waved his hand dismissively at the Outriders and the rest of his children as they began to wreck havoc on New York City and the soldiers who began pouring into the the streets. "And this world will crumple piece by piece, grain by grain, until you bring me my stones!"

However, what nobody knew, was that as Thanos prepared everyone to go to Earth, other people were there with them. People that even the Avengers didn't know were on the ship with them.

Ant-Man and the Wasp.

As everyone was distracted with whatever they had to do, the two made their presence known to the Avengers before beginning to get to work on the bonds which trapped them all. But it was hard, especially since all Ant-Man had was a small, sharp knife that he brought at the last minute. They mostly tried to work the tumbling of the locks, desperate to try to take them all off.

But they still needed to release Captain America.

"Each of your greatest will fall every ten Earth minutes that my stones are not returned to me!" Thanos practically screamed as the two mini fighters began unlocking the bonds. But, as they did, five more creatures appeared, causing Thanos to pause in his speech.

"None of my friends will be dying today!" Thor screamed as everyone glanced over at their direction. Electricity burst from Thor's hands as he narrowed his eyes at the aliens who had invaded his planet.

"Banner?" Tony whispered as Bruce kindof waved toward them all. Then, Tony's eyes flickered to Peter Parker before his eyes widened. "Kid! Get. Out."

"Don't worry, Mr. Stark!" Spider-Man stated in a deep, heroic tone. "We're going to save you!"

"Loki?" Rose Waters whispered softly as she saw the man covered in green and gold. His eyes were on Rose's eyes as well, his head shaking in disapproval ever so slightly.

"What're you doing, Rosie?" He mumbled underneath his breath.

And it was then, when a small scream of joy was heard coming straight from Captain America's bonds as Ant-Man finally managed to release it. At the sound of the click, Steve carelessly threw them off before Ant-Man grew big and let out a cheer.

"You guys are free! Now let's kick some alien ass!"

And just like that, the chaos began.

* * *

 **Who's ready for the fight scene? (slowly raises my own hand)**

 **Thanks for reading! Share your thoughts in the review section below!**

 **~Emily**


	14. Chapter 14

**Water**

 _Rose Waters was wrapping white, medical cloth around her hands when Loki came in. It had been almost two years since Rose Waters had first interrogated the trickster, and for some odd reason, she liked him. Maybe it was the stupid pranks that he played on her siblings, like dye Gamora's hair dark green, but she enjoyed his company. It brought something into her home that she hadn't felt in... well, she's never really felt it before. Fun, was it that Loki said?_

 _It was strange. To Rose Waters, fun was slashing a man's throat open and whispering that his sacrifice was going to save the universe. Fun was easily destroying a soldier in a sparring match. Fun was walking into a room and feeling every being's breathing cease in shock at her prescence. That was fun... or was it? Or had she just confused it for too long with power?_

 _Either way, the 'fun' that Loki had introduced into Rose Waters' world wasn't appreciated very much by Thanos, who immediately put a stop to it. In fact, he made sure of it by always separating Rose's and Loki's missions as far apart as possible. Rose had even overheard that Thanos was sending Loki on a pretty big mission soon... something about the Tesseract..._

 _Rose Waters didn't mean to overhear the conversation, she just sort of... did. Her hearing always just focused on any conversation that involved her beautiful space stone._

 _When Loki walked into the room and saw Rose Waters, her eyes concentrating on the gauze that she yanked at harder and harder around her pale skin, he immediately stopped and stared at her for a moment. A moment too long._

 _"What?" Rose questioned, her voice low and dark. Just because she tolerated, and maybe even enjoyed, his presence didn't mean that she wanted to be by him all the time. He was just the most preferred person to talk to in the entire ship- or universe for all Rose knew._

 _"Shouldn't you be going to the medic bay for that?" Loki questioned as Rose Waters bit the end of the bandaid to tear it before patting it a few times. Red blood seeped through it a little, but Rose Waters didn't mind. It's not like she's never seen blood before._

 _"I like my scars." Rose Waters replied simply and stood up. Her chin jittered a little as she bit down on her bottom lip to stabilize herself. Despite the fact that Rose Waters had her ability for practically her entire life, she still haven't completely mastered it. Sometimes, she would teleport just a fraction of an inch, which made it seem almost like she was blinking in and out of existance._

 _But it wasn't like Thanos cared anymore. He didn't care about Rose Waters' health for a long time, ergo why she was wrapping up her scars right now. After all, in the matter of weeks, Loki was suppose to be back with the Tesseract. And after Thanos has the Tesseract, Rose's little trick of teleporting him from place to place would be useless. She would be useless._

 _After all, while she did try her damn best, her nine and almost ten year old body could only barely be on par with Nebula in a fight. She might've been training her entire life, but she could hardly teleport across her own ship without feeling completely wiped out, much less with another person. It was true, she was practically useless to Thanos' glorious army besides her little teleporting trick._

 _And even that would be useless within the month._

 _"Are you alright, Rosie?" Loki questioned as Rose Waters stood up, her eyes burning in fury._

 _"Don't call me that!" She snapped, her being blinking in and out of existence in her anger._

 _"Whatever you say, Rosie." Loki replied, holding his hands up defensively as Rosie reached out to slap him. Or stab him if her sword would teleport into her hand. Whichever one came first._

 _But Loki only caught her hand and gave her a wicked smile. "You're being so irrational lately, Rosie." He taunted as he suddenly jolted Rose's hand away from him. And, due to her rather poor stance, she fell over, landing right on her back. "Are you becoming a teenager, little one? Oh no, it's too soon."_

 _In response, Rose Waters simply slammed her eyes shut and took in deep breaths, desperate to remember her training. Either she really was slacking, or Loki just got a little better of a fighter. She wouldn't bet on the latter, that man had the fine-motor skills of a brick._

 _"Just get away from me."_

* * *

Everything happened all at once.

Tony Stark's suit booted up and almost immediately, he was able to send an incredible blast at Thanos, who easily blocked his movements with a simple wave of his golden glove. However, as he did so, Captain America punched Corvus Glaive in the back of the head, which only faintly made him limp forward before he turned around and snarled at the soldier.

Black Widow immediately teamed up with Thor to take down Cull Obsidian, the large, almost Hulk-size being who immediately let out an intimidating grunt in the direction of the two puny figures. Proxima Midnight was the only one who really got some time to prepare, her staff immediately out and into a fighting stance as she let out a battle cry at Spider-Man, Wong, Ant-Man, and Wasp, all of whom began to charge to the intimidating member of the group. All this happened as Bruce Banner desperately began to attempt to release the Hulk, only to reach no prevail.

Chaos began, all while Rose Waters simply stared, her presence almost forgotten by practically everyone.

Rose Waters' mind rushed to the numerous star systems where she would be safe. Thanos would already lash out at her for not helping out to begin with, and his trust in her is already shattered to begin with. She could join the Avengers' side... if she was stupid. It might've looked like a okay, or even fair, fight, but it wouldn't last long. In a matter of minutes, Thanos would lose patience and let loose the energy of the Power Stone... and Rose Waters didn't exactly want to be even in the same system as him when that happened.

Perhaps she could go to her base on Mars, but no, that was already breached. Would anyone think of finding her in Knowhere? Or could she could go to...

"Didn't forget about you!" A voice shouted before a blur of white spiderwebs flew onto Rose Water's body. However, she didn't seem to mind in the least, much too consumed with where to go to even pay attention to Spider-Man as he paused by her. For a moment, Peter Parker just looked at Rose's face, still unsure onto whether or not this was the same girl he knew from Physics class. But as sure as the sun glowed, it was the same person, he could tell just with a glimpse of her brilliant, neon colored pupils. Still, there's no such thing as being too careful. However, he was staring for a touch too long and Rose Waters blinked once before looking up to see the legend of Spider-Man. At the sight of his mask, Rose Water's narrowed her eyes.

"What do you want, Parker?" Rose Waters snapped immediately causing Peter to widen his eyes.

"You know-" He started when his Spidey sense went off. Almost immediately, he began to push Rose Water's out of the way, but the very second his skin touched her's, Rose Waters' blinked and they appeared on the top of a building that overlooked the fight.

Almost immediately, Peter Parker began to freak out, his skin feeling tingly and his head a little uneasy as Rose Waters looked outside as the building opposite to them continued to crumple down on the spot they once stood. If it weren't for Rose Waters, they would've been crushed in the rubble.

"Whaaa..." Peter whispered softly as Rose Water's simply rolled her eyes and took a knife from her sleeve before she began to easily cut away at the webbing that encased her. When she finally got out of it, Peter Parker had finally snapped out of his trance and began to speak in full sentences. "You... You know?"

"Of course." Rose Water's spoke and watched the fight continue. So much destruction... in the past, it used to make her smile. It used to make her want to tear the world apart even farther, sending everything into hell. But now, all it could do was let her heart sink to the bottom of her chest.

Peter Parker took off his mask, figuring there was no point now. He suddenly found it hard to breathe, his eyes looking down at his allies and the aliens that attacked. Almost immediately, he dropped the subject of his true identity and looked over at Rose Waters, his eyes wide.

"We need to help them." He stated rather quickly as Rose Waters simply shook her head ever so softly. To Peter's surprise, she was sitting down, her long blond hair blowing in the crisp air. She looked as if she had tears in her eyes, but maybe that was just a trick of the light.

"I don't need to do anything." She whispered softly and took in a deep breath. "Nothing."

"You... You can still help us!" Peter stated frantically. His mind flickered back to when they were in class together, when she would ask the teacher questions on some theories she apparently 'thought of out of the blue'. Theories about space travel, teleportation, and telekinesis, things that modern scientists still have trouble understanding. Theories that blew his own mind and made him think that she wasn't only beautiful, but a genius as well. What made him develop a slight crush on her in the first place.

Peter suddenly realized why she knew all of those theories.

"You're a good person, I know you are!"

Rose Waters was the girl who sat the back of the class, her eyes almost hungrily absorbing every ounce of information in the classroom... no, not information, just the class itself. He remembered faintly how her eyes would linger on him as he sharpened a pencil, or on a girl nearby as she brushed her hair. She wasn't looking for information, she was looking for normality. What it meant to be normal.

Peter could tell... that's exactly what he did after he got his powers. He observed others do the art of being normal, a reflex that disappeared to him the moment he developed his powers.

Despite his almost startling words, Rose Waters didn't even turn her head towards him, but he saw a solemn tear run down her pale cheek. His words lingered in her head, and they would for the rest of her life.

Another explosion rang off, Iron Man getting blown into a lamp post as Spider-Man widened his eyes before he spoke once again.

"They're losing, I need to help them." He whispered and was about to run off the building, a web already being slung when Rose Waters blinked and he appeared a few feet behind where he originally was, quickly losing momentum at the realization of what had just happened.

"Wha-" He started when Rose Waters finally looked up at him.

She was powerful, more powerful than Peter Parker may ever know, but at the moment, she was nothing more than a scared, vulnerable little girl.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say that words that she knew had to leave her mouth. The words that she's been thinking ever since she first committed her life as a runaway. The words that she never dared to leave her tongue until now.

And the words probably would've went through if it weren't for a certain unwanted appearance.

"My golly, I was right!" Loki announced, instantly startling the two young, powered individuals. "My little Rosie is turning into a teenager-and a love-struck one at that!"

At the sight of an old comrade, Rose Waters' immediately stood up and blinked rapidly, desperate to get the wet tears out of her eyes. Loki noticed, of course, but didn't say a word.

"Ruling Asgard get a little boring?" Rose Waters questioned, her voice slick with sarcasm as Loki shrugged.

"Something like that."

The God of Mischief opened his mouth again, ready to continue his little speech, when a sudden burst of bullets rang out. While others would've probably curled into a ball in fear, the three simple stood up as proudly as ever as a ship of blue, orange, and silver began to hover over New York City.

"What's up peeps, your prayers have been answered!" A man with deep blonde hair shouted, his eyes only focused on the purple monster in front of him.

"The Guardians of the Galaxy have arrived!"

* * *

 **... Is it too late to say I took a little break?**

 **Super sorry for the late chapter, but I really wasn't feeling any Avengers vibes lately. However, as you guys probably know by now, Captain Marvel is being released today so I decided to continue this story!**

 **Please, please, please review to let me know if this story is worth continuing! I love reading them and they really give me the motivation to keep going!**

 **Totally going to watch Captain Marvel after this... might give me some more inspiration :)**

 **~Emily**


	15. Chapter 15

**Let Us Fall**

Gamora was the first to leave the ship, her eyes full of a heavy rage as she marched towards Thanos, both of her green hands clutching knifes sharpened to a fine point. She marched towards him, each stride full of purpose and anger as Thanos directed his attention towards his favourite daughter.

"Gamora." He whispered as he simply clenched his fist, making Tony Stark turn into a pool of liquid with the help of the reality stone.

However, Spider-Man didn't see that. What he saw was his mentor, his _father-figure,_ die right in front of him.

"TONY!" Spider-Man screamed, not even bothering to put his mask on as he shot himself down to where Iron Man had once been, his hands pressing at the liquid as tears ran down his face. "Tony." His voice turned soft, tears dripping onto where his mentor once stood before he turned his head to the purple giant in front of him.

"YOU!" He screamed, his voice raw and horrific, the syllable stretching with endless amounts of sadness and anger. He immediately launched a web at the giant's legs and pulled at it, his full strength great enough to make Thanos stumble back a bit... but not enough to make him fall.

Instead, Thanos simply grabbed at the string, and with the help of the Power stone, he swung the boy into a building with enough strength to begin to make the building begin to crumple down, all while Gamora began to make her first strike at the Mad Titan.

"All hands on Thanos!" Captain America screamed, leaving no room for mourning for his loss comrade. Almost immediately, the group of Avengers and Guardians made a short-term contraption to trap some of the child and began to walk towards Thanos, their eyes full of uncontrolled rage at the sight of their fallen friend.

All of this happened as Loki and Rose Waters watched from the top of a building.

"He's going to send this world into pieces." Loki whispered softly, his eyes flickering at the two stones that stood proudly on his glove.

"Not with Gamora on it." Rose Waters replied as she continued to watch her green sister creep up closer and closer to Thanos.

"His ties to his children aren't that strong." Loki continued, a hint of disappoint in his words. "I thought you of all people would know that by now."

"You're wrong." Rose replied, her hands gripping at the concrete beneath her fingers so harshly that it broke. But her voice was shaky and full of uncertainty.

"Rosie, do something." Loki finally stated and took a step backwards. "Join Thanos or fight him. Just don't... don't just stand there."

Rose Waters eyes looked at the people who launched themselves at Thanos, only to get thrown backwards with the help of the power stone. However, she spotted a man with a mask get through and manage to shoot him a couple of times with his gun. _Star-Lord._ She watched, _accessed,_ desperately trying to figure out who was the winning side. In the corner of her vision, some of Thanos' children began to get up to help the fight once more.

"I... I need to find the winning side." She whispered softly and gripped the concrete a little more harshly. So many variables rushed through her mind, so many things to take into consideration. The girl... the lover girl of the machine with red mist around her hands, she was powerful, she could possibly help cripple the purple giant... Thor, Loki's brother, he's powerful but... but his hammer, he doesn't have his hammer, so he's weakened, and against the power stone, he has absolutely no chance. The two people who can grow and shrink can prove useful, but a little blast of a power stone will immediately send them down... and Gamora. Gamora has grown soft, Rose Waters could tell just from the way that she held herself. Perhaps in the past when she was cold and cunning, Gamora would have a good chance of taking down her Father, but... but she has a weakness now.

The weakness was the blond man with the red jacket, the Star-Lord. She knew it was just from the way that they occasionally glanced at each other with the slightest tinge of worry and love in each other's eyes... and Thanos wouldn't hesitate to use that love against them.

"Winning side?" Loki questioned and raised an eyebrow. "What happened to fighting for what you believe in, Rosie? What happened to fighting because it's right, not because you know you'll come up on top?"

"I don't want to die, Loki!" Rose Waters screamed, the blueness in her eyes intensifying as she clenched her fists tightly. When Rose met Loki's eyes, it was to realize that, for the first time in forever, there was disgust in his eyes. Pure and utter disgust.

"You're a coward, Waters." He whispered softly as Rose Waters let out a scream at him.

"I want to help them, Loki, really do, but I'm not.. not DYING for this cause!" She yelled as Loki narrowed his eyes once more.

"A coward."

As soon as the words slipped past his lips, Rose Waters saw red. Almost immediately, she sent a punch at his cheek, sending him tumbling off of the edge of the building. However, before he could hit the ground, Rose Waters blinked so that his body now rested on the ground with only a thud, as if it wasn't just falling just a moment ago.

With another blink, Rose Waters appeared at the feet of Loki, every part of her still raging with fury as she picked the trickster up by the collar and brought his pale face close to hers.

"Remember who you're talking to, trickster." She whispered harshly when she heard another voice yell at her in rage.

"Let go of my brother at once, witch!" A deep, manly voice screamed as Rose Waters brought her head up and dropped Loki, making the back of his skull hit the ground. At the sight of the girl, of her almost white-blond hair and striking blue eyes, Thor widened his eyes. "Rose Waters?" _This_ was the girl who Loki had trusted, the same girl who he _swore_ hated Thanos with all her heart?

"The one and only." She replied, rage still tingling at her fingertips, the voice loud enough to make Gamora turn her head to see what was happening. The moment her eyes spotted Rose Waters, however, her eyes widened like never before.

"Rosie?" She whispered softly and let her daggers drop just a fraction of an inch. "Rosie... I thought you were dead."

"You left me." Rose Waters whispered harshly and took a threatening step towards Gamora. "You _left_ me for... for a little rag-tag team of... of idiots!" She screamed, an old wound slowly being opened up.

"Rag-tag team?" Rocket the raccoon questioned, who stopped firing his gun for half a second. "We're the freakin' Guardians of the Galaxy lad-" he started when Rose Waters flickered her hand, sending the raccoon to the other side of the city.

"I am Groot?" Groot whispered softly to where Rocket once stood, his eyes wide as he turned towards Rose Waters, a new rage truly formed in his eyes as he narrowed his eyes at Rose Waters. "I AM GROOOT!"

At the sight of a moving tree running towards her, Rose Waters flicked her hand once more, sending the tree to the exact same spot where Rocket was as she took another step towards Gamora.

"Stay out of this, Rose." Gamora hissed as she twirled her dagger in her hand. "You're obviously a coward, so please act like it."

At the word, Rose Water's cheeks flushed a deep red, making her fair skin suddenly seem spottily as she twirled her wrist so that a knife appeared inside of it. However, before she could decide on her next move, a sudden bright beam of light slammed at the purple giant, it's power enough to make the monster fall to his knees.

"Vision!" Wanda cried, her eyes wet with joy as he continued to pummel his stone's power against Thanos. However, before another second could pass, a sudden spear went through Vision from behind, suddenly jolting his power to a stop as he fell to his knees.

"Hail Thanos." Corvus Glaive hissed as he ripped the spear from the machine's body. At the sight of another one of his precious stones, Thanos immediately stood up and with a flick of his fingers, swept everyone away using his power stone, his eyes on one thing only.

"The mind stone..." He whispered softly. "It's been too long..."

The Avengers frantically began to get up, ready to fight tooth and nail to save Vision, but before they could, Thanos' other children stepped in, providing just the slightest pocket of time for Thanos to walk up to Vision and begin to rip the stone from his forehead.

"No." Rose Waters whispered, simply doing nothing as she watched the scene unfold before them. Tony Stark was still nothing more than a puddle on the ground, Peter Parker was buried underneath a pile of rubble, and everyone thought she was a coward. A traitor.

She might've had her knife in her hand, but she felt powerless. Weak. Defenseless.

Taking the stone out of Visions skull was a simple task for Thanos. It took less than a second, but in that second, an eternity passed for Wanda, who began to scream as the love of her life broke apart. The machine's eyes were only on her's, his mouth whispering that it was going to be alright as the light left his costume and he crumpled down, as limp as a rug.

And that was all it took for Wanda to fall apart.

"NO!" She screamed, sending a brutal wave of red power over everyone, her teammates and enemies alike. "NO!"

The blast was strong enough to send Thanos hurdling just an inch forward before he turned around and send a blast of his power towards Wanda, his eyes narrowed as Wanda sent her own wave of power towards him, her eyes narrowed as she let out yet another blood curdling scream.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DI-" She began, but before she could finish, a yellow light glimmered on Thanos' gauntlet, and suddenly, Wanda was on her knees, staring at her hands as the Mind Stone's magic came to work.

"This stone gave you your powers." Thanos whispered almost hauntingly. "It can take them away too."

And just like that, the once fierce flame that licked Wanda's eyes had disappeared, the firely red that once surrounded her suddenly dissipating as she let out a scream of pain.

Right before a sudden trash can lid hit Thanos' gauntlet, wavering his focus for half a second as a white web suddenly shot over Wanda, dragging her almost limp body away.

"That's enough." Captain America stated as he grabbed the trash can lid with his hand, Spider-Man already off and away to bring the Scarlet Witch to safety.

Thanos narrowed his eyes and clenched his gauntlet before he fully took in the scene before him. His comrades had fallen due to Scarlet Witch's deadly blast, all except for Rose Waters... but Thanos was beginning to have second thoughts of her. Somewhere off in the distance, the Mad Titan could hear humming. Airplanes. War jets. Primitive technology, but it could cause damage nonetheless.

He might've had three stones, but he still needed to recenter himself. Besides, when the Wizard would come with the Time Stone, he would need some bait like the Avengers. The Wizard would leave immediately if he found the planet half-gone.

"Yes, that is." He whispered softly and held his arm for Rose Waters to take, his eyes expectant as Rose Waters flinched at the gesture. She paused for half a moment too long and Thanos put his arm down as he deflected a measly shot fired by Quill and War Machine.

"I see how it is." The Mad Titan stated as he easily created a purple shield around him as the Avengers began shooting frantically at him. "I truly believed in you, Rosie."

The word Rosie triggered her and almost immediately, Rose Waters wanted to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness from her king. She wanted to cry and tell him that she loved him in the same twisted way that he might've loved her. She couldn't help it, _Thanos was all she knew._ She grew up under his harsh hand, but it was a hand nonetheless. _He made her who she was._

But her mouth stayed shut and she held her ground, her eyes only slightly wet with tears as Thanos gave her a curt nod. _Out of respect._ He was then immediately beamed up to his spaceship along with his other children, quickly taking off after as Rose Waters stood there, her mouth half open.

However, behind her, Tony Stark became whole once more and casually re positioned his glasses as everyone gawked at him.

"What?" The billionaire genius questioned. "I was taking a nap."

* * *

 **Who here watched Captain Marvel? What did you guys think about it?**

 **Love you all bunches!**

 **~Emily**


	16. Chapter 16

**Life Repeats**

 _"Father Thanos, are you alright?" Rose Waters questioned, her brilliant blue eyes wide as she followed her master around, almost like a dog. Rose Waters was fourteen years old, still fairly youthful, but she had reached the age where she had matured not only mentally, but physically as well. However, while most fourteen-year-olds might go outside for a fun little night out or even to steal a few kisses away with the night, Rose Waters spent her days and nights practicing, fighting, and most importantly of them all, killing._

 _"Gamora has... betrayed us." Thanos replied, his fists clenched, the words not even making Rose Waters blink. "And Nebula seems to be gone as well." However, his words about Nebula seemed to almost be brushing her off. Rose Waters didn't really mind though, after all, it was just... Nebula._

 _"Ronin had taken her, hadn't he?" Rose Waters questioned, despite the fact that she had already known the answer. "We should give him a bit of a... talking to."_

 _"You don't think I would've already!" Thanos screamed, almost insulted by Waters, which only caused a single blink from Rose Waters, her entire body practically emotionless at his yelling. His voice then turned low and cold. "He's gone... Dead by the hands of Gamora and some other strange folk on Xandar... called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy I believe."_

 _"A stupid name for a lucky group." Rose Waters quipped as she continued to follow her master. "Would you like me to take them down?"_

 _"No." Thanos said immediately._

 _The Mad Titan wouldn't say it, after all, he didn't want to stir any ideas into Rose's mind, but they were both thinking it. Thanos was worried that if Rose Waters would go to kill the little group, then they might convince her to join them. It was possible, after all, Gamora was very convincing, but Rose Waters brushed the thought aside. Her loyalty would, and always will, lie with Thanos, and nothing could change that._

 _"Dismissed." Thanos continued as he stepped past a door, which immediately shut on her._

 _At his exit, Rose Waters blinked and appeared in her bedroom and before she began to undo her hair. She desperately wanted to sleep and for this long day to be over. It was the anniversary, the second one of when Loki had completely botched his mission, and even worse, had practically given the Mind Stone to the Earthlings. The day was unfortunate to say the least, and ever since, Thanos had turned even colder than before. Even more torturous than before... not like Rose Waters minded or anything._

 _Nothing pissed him off more than losing one of his precious stones._

 _Rose Waters had offered to right Loki's wrongs. She was the perfect spy with her human features and on top of that, she could easily look and act like a little girl at her will. Besides, teleportation would come in handy making her even more of an asset. By the time anyone would realize that the Tesseract and Mind Stone were gone, they would be with Lord Thanos and Rose Waters would finally be his right hand._

 _But time after time again, Thanos would refuse to approve of her mission plan. Not because it was too dangerous, not because he thought Rose Waters wasn't qualified. Because she would be a weapon in the hands of Earth, even if right now, she was hardly an asset in his army. Because he thought that Rose Waters might turn on him and join her own people, the humans. He told her that the humans were persuasive, that they were soft. That they would turn her soft and she would turn on him. Even though to Thanos, Rose Waters was simply a convenience, if humans got their hands on the girl, then Earth could, dare say, turn into a threat._

 _It hurt that Thanos didn't seem to trust Rose Waters very much, if at all, but Rose Waters understood. At least, she understood as much as she could._

* * *

"There's no point into locking her up." Loki stated as Rose Waters sat down in the Quinjet, her hands bound by some metal bonds. "She could easily escape just like that. She's just acting helpless."

"You, shut up." Stark replied Rose Waters stared into space, the gears in her brain spinning as Captain America continued to stare at her, his uniform off as Rose Waters simply stared at the ground.

"What's his next move?" Captain America questioned as Rose Waters' simply blinked, not even teleporting an inch away. "Hey, tell me, _what is his next move?"_

"He never trusted me." Rose Waters whispered softly, her first words out ever since they had 'captured' her. With nothing more than a blink of an eye, her bonds lay on ground a few feet away from her as she carefully wrapped her arms around her bony legs. Her eyes looked sad, almost regretful. "Never."

"Told you." Loki stated as Thor nudged at his brother.

"Maybe you can get her to talk, since the two of you are such good friends and all." But his words only made Loki hold his hands up in surrender.

"Apparently we're not. Heck, I barely know that girl. The first time we met, she was about to stab me."

"Nice." Stark replied as he swirled around in his chair and walked over to Rose Waters. "Hey, kid, listen, maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I'm Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, also known as the savior of Earth, also known as-"

"We get it, Tony." Steve Rogers replied as Tony simply rolled his eyes.

"Yeah well, you need to help us because, well, our planet kind of likes to live." He slightly nudged Rose Waters in a playful sort of tone. "Yeah, our planet, right? Aren't you from Earth or something?"

"I have ancestry there." She whispered, her voice hoarse as Tony Stark nodded, his eyes glancing at Cap.

"So... your parents are from Earth." Steve Rogers questioned. Maybe if he proved he wasn't a threat, then maybe she would trust him. At his words, Rose Waters slowly nodded her head before he continued. "So how did you get to Thanos? Heck, how did you even get your powers? "

At his words, Rose Waters' gaze turned to the wall as she spoke. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"But you were trained from birth, huh?" A sudden voice chipped in, revealing Natasha Romanoff. She casually slipped into the room, a single eyebrow raised as she pressed her hands against the bench that Rose Waters was sitting in, trapping her in.

"Captured, trained, and told lies about what you were doing? Told that what you were doing was for the greater good as they made you into a weapon." Her words stung Rose in a way she couldn't explain as the spy continued. "Let me guess, you were the top of your class?..." She spotted the girl's face stiffen and smirked. "No... the bottom of your class, so you had to prove yourself didn't you? Didn't you?!" Her voice suddenly turned aggressive at the end as Cap put a hand on her shoulder.

"Calm down, Nat, she's just a kid-"

"Oh, but she's no kid." Natasha snapped. "She's a teleporting, trained, assassin thing from space... Even if she might be human on the inside." Her eyes flicked back to Rose's before she spoke again. "You had to kill didn't you? Again and again and again and again until you didn't even know what it meant to kill anymore. Until you didn't know what it meant to _live_ again? You broke again and again and again until one day you snappe-"

"Shut up." Rose Waters hissed as her eyes snapped to the spy. "Shut up or I'm going to teleport you right into a pool of lava."

"For telling the truth?" Black Widow questioned as Rose Waters raised an eyebrow.

"No, because I'm _bored."_ She replied and lied down, her blue eyes glaring at the ceiling, not taking another question as the group continued to make their way for Wakanda.

* * *

 _"Again." Thanos muttered as Rose Waters narrowed her eyes and began to charge towards Proxima Midnight, who hastily got up from getting knocked down from the last match. She fiercely grabbed her spear from the ground as Rose Waters narrowed her eyes and charged at her sister. A flurry of kicks escaped from her as Proxima desperately tried to deflect them, her spear blocking most of her attacks. But Rose Waters was fast,_ _even without her little teleporting trick,_ _and Proxima was still faintly injured from the last match. In a mere minute, Rose Waters had hit Proxima in the cheek, chest, and left arm, causing her grip on the spear to loosen up as she delivered the final blow._

 _Proxima hit the ground, her body too out of breath to take her on for the umpteenth time. Rose Waters plucked her spear from off the ground and put the pointy end to Proxima's chest, her blue eyes full of only boredness as Thanos gave his two children a slow clap._

 _"Well done, Rose." Thanos mumbled, completely ignoring Proxima, as Rose Waters raised her head in satisfaction as she gracefully stood up and bowed before her master._

 _"Thank you, Lord Thanos." Rose Waters replied, her voice high in spirits, her respect and love for Thanos dripping in her tone._

 _"We're saving Planet Q23R tomorrow." Thanos continued as Proxima staggered away, her eyes giving Rose Waters a death stare. "I've wanted to liberate their people for decades now and sources tell me that they may have possession of the Soul Stone."_

 _Rose Waters nodded her head, her mind taking in everything he was saying. She was bringing herself higher and higher in ranking, in usefulness. One day, she would simply be an irreplaceable general of his, something he could never get rid of even if he wanted to. Something that he would love and cherish forever._

 _"Their fairly fortified." Thanos continued. "With a X92 spacecraft looming over their planet as a defense system." He paused, his eyes lingering on Rose Waters enthusiasm. Despite the fact that she was now sixteen in Earth years, she still hung onto his every word like a child. It was useful in someways, he supposed. At least she hadn't turned into a brat, it would've been a shame to get rid of her. "I need you to infiltrate it and destroy it."_

 _At his words, a large, genuine smile spread onto Rose Waters face, something that Thanos couldn't recall ever seeing before in his entire life. It was full of joy and Thanos could almost sense tears in the young girl's eyes as he continued. "It will be a solo mission. You'll have to sneak into the reactor room, place a bomb there, and teleport back here, understand?"_

 _"Yes, Lord Thanos." Rose Waters responded, more chipper than a chipmunk at the knowledge that she was going to kill thousands. "Thank you for trusting me enough for this task."_

 _"You are released." Thanos continued as Rose Waters happily nodded, bowed, and walked out of the room before teleporting to her bedroom._

 _Once in the privacy of her own room, Rose Waters let out a squeal of joy and fell onto her bed and smiled, as if she was a teenage girl who just received the number of her biggest crush. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, it was all worth it. Every drop of blood, tear, and scar had finally become worth it. She was important to Thanos, he_ trusted _her._

 _She took in deep breaths and looked at the ceiling, her hands clutching her pillow._

 _It would all be smooth sailing from now on._

* * *

 **Volia, hope you guys all enjoyed!**

 **Remember to leave a review onto how you think this story will end up!... not like it's going to end any time soon. Trust me, I'm just getting started :)**

 **Love you all,**

 **~Emily**


	17. Chapter 17

**Guardians Assemble**

"So this is the girl who has caused all that trouble." T'Challa questioned as he stared at Rose Waters, who gave him an equally intimidating stare back. "She's a child."

"Shut up." Rose Waters hissed as Captain America crossed his arms.

"Looks are deceiving." He replied simply as a few guards grabbed Rose Waters, who didn't even try to resist.

"We'll take her to our... finest jail cell."

"Oh really? Will there be room service?" Rose Waters replied, her voice slightly shaking. Her voice seemed to grow sarcastic the more afraid she was.

"I am sure Shuri will enjoy her presence." T'Challa continued as Rose Waters calmly walked with the highly-alert guards, her eyes flickering at everything around her as Rocket and Groot admired Wakanda.

"So this is the finest Earth's got, huh?" Rocket questioned and glanced at the king. "A little underwhelming."

"May I ask what those are?" T'Challa questioned.

"I am Groot." Groot replied as Gamora walked out of the ship, her eyes briefly accessing the landscape.

"Peter, Earth isn't going to eat you alive. You can get out of the ship."

At her words, Peter Quill calmly walked into Wakanda, his eyes trailed on the ground before he looked over at Gamora. "Why don't we just... you know, skedaddle? I mean, Thanos is still out there-" He began before Gamora cut him off.

" _Rose Waters_ is here." She replied and crossed her arms, her eyes flickering at Tony Stark and Black Widow. "And your people don't seem very... willing to hand her over just yet."

"Actually, we're Asgardian." Thor chipped in and wrapped an arm around Loki, who calmly pushed it off as Rocket simply waved his hand in dismissal.

"Whatever. Potato Patato." He continued as Loki raised an eyebrow, already offended.

"I'm actually a Frost Giant." He replied as Drax walked out of the ship.

"So this is the place Quill calls Earth." He placed his hands on his hips. "It's quite beautiful."

"Finally someone appreciates this place." Banner mumbled as Drax continued.

"For how horrible Quill always calls it." Drax continued. "I expected fire to be raining from the very skies!" He let out a hardy laugh. "Good job, tiny ones!"

"Yes, good job!" Mantis replied as Tony continued to stare at her antennas, his mind whirling with how they work. Mantis turned to see Tony and gave him a big, creepy smile. "In case you were wondering, they do not protect me from short door frames."

"What?" Tony questioned. "Why would anyone think that?"

"Hey, it's a very reasonable thought." Drax cut in as he turned to T'Challa whose eyes flickered away from the odd group. "Where are your toilet chambers? I'm afraid I need to let a big one loose."

"Um, inside. Here, he will led you." T'Challa stated as Drax followed a very intimidated guard to the bathroom.

"Well, now what?" Bruce questioned as Thor simply shrugged.

"I suppose we wait for this Thanos to appear." He replied and crossed his arms, his eyes shifting to T'Challa. "I don't suppose you have an Asgardian hammer lying around."

"No. Though we have plenty made of vibranium." T'Challa replied rather flatly as Ant-Man and the Wasp casually snapped pictures, as if they were tourists.

"That brings me to the question, why did you guys sneak onto the ship? We would've invited you on." Steve Rogers questioned as Janet Van Dyne shrugged.

"Didn't know for sure." She replied and almost facepalmed herself. "Oh shoot, Dad is probably worried sick. One sec, gotta call." She walked over to the field and casually pulled out her phone to make a call as Scott Lang casually tried to acquaint himself with the others.

"So... I heard you could turn green." He casually said to Banner who simply walked away, before he spotted Groot still playing a video game. "I hope Cassie won't be like that..."

"I think we should all discuss Thanos." Natasha stated, her arms crossed. "We got lucky this time to get him so weak... it won't happen twice."

"I agree." Tony replied as War Machine walked in, a smile on his face.

"Heyyy, what's up you guys!" He stated as most flat out ignored him.

"So we should really begin to make a plan..." Natasha continued as Peter Quill spoke up.

"Yeah, I have one." He casually walked to the middle of the group, obviously trying to be the center of attention. "Here it is... we take off the glove."

"That's a stupid plan." Wanda suddenly spoke as she stumbled towards the group, still drained.

"Wanda! You're awake!" Cap exclaimed as he rushed over to wrap an arm around her. Her eyes were cold, no sense of life in them. "Are... are you alright."

"I feel like a battery whose been drained." Wanda replied and flexed her fingers before straining her mind to only make a flicker of red magic appear over her palm. Barely any power was left inside of her. "I... I hope this isn't permanent..." Her voice completely broken apart as she let out a sob, her knees buckling. "Vision..."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. We'll be able to fix him." Tony replied as Wanda looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears.

"I know... once we get back the Mind Stone." She replied before she wiped her tears away, revealing eyes full of determination. "I'm not losing anyone else."

"Wait, so why is my plan stupid?" Star Lord questioned. "Because last I've heard, I'm the leader of this team."

At his words, everyone gave him a strange stare before attempting to forget the words that just left his mouth, including the majority of his own team. "So... what should we do?" Tony questioned as Steve chipped in an idea.

"We need to work as a unit." He glanced over at the Guardians who stuck out like a sore thumb before he pointed to Groot. "You, what are your powers?"

"I am Groot." Groot replied simply as Rocket chipped in for him.

"Killing. Playing video games. Growing branches. Being lazy. Never doing the dishes. Oh, and saying I am Groot in that exact order." Rocket replied as he leaned against Groot and pointing over to Gamora. "She's the daughter of Thanos and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty." His finger shifted to Quill. "He's from Earth but apparently had a Dad who was a God, a bad one at that who kind of wanted to take over the universe. No biggie though, he's dead." He then pointed to Mantis. "She can make you sleep and feel certain emotions."

"Would you like me to show you?" Mantis questioned, her eyes wide as Tony shrugged and held his arm out. The moment Mantis touched his bare skin, she spoke. "Laugh."

At her word, Tony Stark let out the loudest, snobbiest laughter any of them had ever heard before. He laughed so hard that he began to snort as everyone stared at him and then at Mantis before taking a slight step backwards.

"And me," Rocket continued and gave them all a wide grin. "Why, I'm the most valuable asset of this team. Not only am I ridiculously good looking, but I know how to work these bad boys," He pointed towards the guns that sat proudly at his waist. "And I can fix ANYTHING."

"Sure." Tony replied and clapped his hands together, slowly composing himself. "So-"

"Oh, and don't forget me!" Drax shouted as he ran towards them.

"Oh, yes, and Drax likes to stab things." Rocket finished as Drax stopped by his allies, astonishment on his face.

"Oh, Cat man!" Drax stated, his eyes wide. "That toilet chamber was delightful, however, it is currently clogged and the stench may have made the guard pass out!" At his words T'Challa nodded his head ever so slightly.

"Okay..." He replied as Steve quickly changed the subject.

"So, I think we could a use for yo-" He started when Quill spoke up.

"Wait, shouldn't we know what _you_ guys do?" He questioned as Banner chipped in.

"I think that might take a little too long-" He began when a bald lady began to run towards the group.

"My King! There's a situation!" Okoye shouted as T'Challa immediately turned to her. Blood dripped from her arm, which she clutched frantically before she spoke.

"The girl, Rose Waters! She has... escaped."

* * *

Rose Waters decided not to kill anyone.

It was a strange decision to make, but she decided that the first step to... to betraying her beloved ruler was to disobey his rules. So she only severely damaged her escorts as well as anyone who stood in her way. Of course, she might've killed one or two, but well, nobody was perfect.

It wasn't an easy escape by any means, despite their... humanness, the warriors had put up a fair fight. Whatever their spears were made out of had pierced her skin, causing it not to heal as easily, which wasn't expected. She was pierced twice, once in the stomach and once in her left arm, enough times that she knew Thanos would've scolded her dead if he ever found out. If only she had killed them, by doing that, she would've gotten away scot-free.

After the fight, Rose was just the tiniest bit winded and hurt, so her teleporting capabilities weren't exactly the best. She could probably teleport to New York if she _really_ wanted to, but her space station was off limits.

She teleported a kilometer or so into the distance, desperate to get into the clear. She knew just like everyone else that Thanos was going to come back to finish what he started, and Rose Waters would want to be as far away as possible when that would happen.

She jumped into some bushes and ran into a palace, figuring that the forest was probably riddled with booby traps. A few guards intercepted her, but she easily waved them off as she continued to run, desperate to get away to a higher vantage point. Her ultimate plan was to get to the top of the palace so she could find a better point to teleport to. A safer distance that would take much less energy.

However, as she got to a main hall with stairs, she only faced an angry group of Avengers and Guardians.

"Hey, what the heck." Tony Stark stated as he crossed his arms. "I thought you were done with running away."

"I-" She started when Tony shot her leg, causing her to fall down and let out a yelp of pain.

"Cheap shot, I know." Tony muttered as everyone began to creep on her.

"We don't want to hurt you, Rosie." Gamora whispered softly. "I know how you feel, you're scared."

"I'm not scared!" Rose Waters replied, her voice coated in fear as they all continued to walk towards her, their weapons raised. _Death, death, death,_ that was the only thing ringing in her fragile mind.

"They're not going to hurt you." Loki spoke. "If you have to trust me on anything, then trust me on that, Rosie."

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Rose Waters screamed, still clutching her burnt leg as she continued to scramble backwards. Her blue eyes lit further with fury as Quill sent out a warning shot, which missed her head by a hair. The shot made Roses scream, every muscle in her body on fire.

And just like that, Rose Waters played her trump card.

With a flick of a finger, the Tesseract appeared in her hand and almost immediately, a rush of power entered her body as she let out a shaky exhale, her body absorbing it's power as Tony widened his eyes.

"Stop her!" He screamed, as everyone let out a flurry of shots at the girl with the blue cube.

They were too late though. Rose Waters was already gone.

* * *

 **In your mind, do you see Rose Waters as a good person or a bad one?**

 **Have a great day!**

 **~Emily**


	18. Chapter 18

**Stories from Before**

 _Rose Waters had to kill nineteen people on Planet Q23R to finally get the police's attention._

 _Everything about her was different. Her hair was coated a deep black and her eyes had recently been surgically colored a midnight blue to hide it's true colors. Her clothes, instead of black and terrifying, were simple garments that screamed poor and uneducated. However, Rose Waters' biggest change had to be her fighting style. Instead of taking down everyone with moves that screamed TRAINED, her techniques were more sloppy, as if she had learned them from the streets._

 _After stabbing the last man, a siren could be heard in the distance and Rose Waters let out the smallest of smiles. It was about time, she was beginning to get bored. Her ultimate plan was to be escorted to the main base, where she would then proceed to steal a small spaceship to gain clearance to go to the mothership, or what the locals called, The Guardian, and blow it to shreds. She couldn't teleport there since she had no idea what it looked like and Thanos had no pictures to aid her, so she would just have to make do with a little recon... besides, it was the best she could do on such short notice._

 _Little children shrank against a nearby wall, their eyes wide at the girl with black hair who had people's blood on her hands. At the sight of them, Rose Waters gave them a haunting smile. They're cowards, all of them. If Thanos decides to wipe them out, so be it. All they do is waste space and previous food while other children with more potential are starving._

 _Her thoughts clouded her mind before sudden handcuffs went over her wrists. At the feeling, Rose Waters yelped, the coldness of the metal completely foreign to her skin, and she even teleported her wrist in and out of the cuffs for a split second. However, Rose prayed that nobody would notice, and, to her relief, nobody did._

 _It wasn't long before Rose Waters was deweaponized, told her rights, before being thrown carelessly into a black van, ready to be driven to the main base. The van was full of other, more lesser, criminals, all of whom didn't seem to be here for the first time, which wasn't surprising in the least thing. Murder was common in this section of town, and Rose Waters would've bet a spaceship that the majority of people in this van killed at least fifty._

 _However, despite the fact that it was her plan to get put in a van like this, Rose Waters still held her head down low, a little disgusted to be put with a bunch of low-lifes like them. She was Rose Waters for goodness sake, if those idiots were going to lock her up, then she should have at least her own little vehicle with a hundred guards ready to fight her off._

 _...Not like she should be arrested or anything, after all, Rose Waters was the good guy. She was doing what the universe needed._

 _"Hey." A small voice whispered over, it's hot breath casting pressing against Rose Waters' shoulder as she slowly turned her head to face the person. It was a man as far as Rose could tell, with light green skin, huge, greedy little eyes, and about eleven arms, all handcuffed. Rose didn't know the species' name off the top of her head, but she knew that she had decimated at least a hundred of them in the past. "You're gorgeous, baby. When we all break outta here, you wanna go somewhere-"_

 _"Oh shut it, will you, mate?" Another voice shouted as Rose Waters turned her head fiercely to see a man who... who seemed to be like her. Human. In a moment, Rose's heart skipped. Despite all her adventures, all her little killings, Rose had never once seen a... a real human before... someone like her... Thanos had never let her..._

 _A human... Her people... the compassionate, soft people who would corrupt her the moment she heard them speak..._

 _Guessing by the strange symbol imprinted on the man's uniform, he seemed to be a Ravenger, the organization that once stood with good intentions before greed got the best of them. The man was fairly youthful, at least in his twenties as far as Rose could tell, with jet black hair, deep brown skin, and the tiniest bit of stubble grown on his chin. Oh, and dark brown eyes. Rose Waters didn't even know that humans could have different eye colors other than brilliant blue before this._

 _"Who's going to make me?" The green alien questioned as Rose Waters slowly turned her head towards him and gave him the coldest, most intimidating stare she could muster. If she looked like herself, then most would say that she looked like the reincarnation of death itself. However, apparently, it didn't seem to work anymore. "Ah, you're cute-"_

 _However, before he could finish, Rose Waters banged her forehead against his and kicked him in the chest hard, forcing him off his seat onto the ground, where he let out a groan and started coughing pink blood._ Lucky _, if Rose Waters wasn't in such a good mood because of her mission and all, he would've been dead._

 _"Oh, a fighter." The dark skinned man stated as Rose Waters looked back at him, her eyes still glaring. "I like you!" But her death stare still stayed focused on the human as he scrunched his face and spoke. "Hey, put that face away, what'd I do?"_

 _"Never." Rose Waters whispered, her chin turned up. "Even_ think _, that_ I _need to be saved again."_

 _When that man spoke to the alien, it made Rose Waters feel an indescribable rage. How DARE he try to 'save' a child of Thanos? How DARE he even THINK that she needed saving? She was more powerful than all of them combined, SHE WAS ROSE WATERS!_

 _But the thoughts stayed drifting in Rose's mind as the man pursed his lips and smiled once more._

 _"You remind of my sister." He stated, almost a little in a daydream-like state. "Now, what're you in for?"_

 _Rose Waters didn't even think through her answer. It just came blurting out. "Killed a few people, you?"_

 _"Got into a fight with my boss. Stupid blue guy, you know, but he's intimidating, so I'll give him that. He can control this stupid arrow." He shrugged and leaned back into his seat. "I tried to take him down when the police took me away and boss flew like a little birdie."_

 _"Wow, how brave of you." Rose Waters replied rather sarcastically as another smile drifted upon the man's face._

 _"Not really brave, more like stupid."_

 _"I can see that."_

 _"Oh, will you two stop flirting already!" A random man with deep blue skin stated when Rose Waters kicked him in the neck._

 _"Shut up." She replied as the human crossed his arms and gave her a slight pouty face._

 _"Oh, come on, that one was mine to take down."_

 _"Oh, well then please, be my guest to finish it." Rose Waters replied as the man easily kicked the blue skinned man in the spine, causing him to pile on top of the green alien they had taken down from earlier._ _"Still breathing." Rose Waters added, a hint of a smile resting on her face._

 _"Well, don't want_ _murder on my case too, don't I?" The man spoke back before pulled out his hands in the direction of hers, which were still enclosed in large handcuffs. "My name's Wind."_

 _"My name's... Waters." Rose Waters replied simply as the van came to a stop and the guards began to drag everyone out, not at all surprised that two were currently unconscious. As they walked into the facility, the human crept up so that he was walking beside Rose Waters before he whispered into her ear._

 _"Look down, Waters." Rose's eyes wandered down to notice that his hands seemed to be moving within the restraints, but her face remained motionless. "These little bonds over here are the cheapest things on the market. Want me to tell you how to get out?"_

 _"No thank you, I think I'll manage." Rose Waters replied simply as they all began to file into a large prison cell for lowlifes like themselves. Rose Waters smiled. She would break out of the jail cell after she got lost in the crowd, that way, nobody would even think that she had escaped so no alarms or precautions would be sounded. It was easy, almost a little too easy._

 _However, right as they all began to file into the cell, a hand grabbed at Water's shoulder, preventing her from going any farther._

 _"Excuse me-" Rose Waters began when a sudden electrical shock ran through her body._

 _Rose Waters had been tasered in the past, but not like this. Not like how she felt as if a million volts were rushing through her body, practically frying every cell that made her, her. Pain attacked her nerves, when, out of nowhere, a pinch of pain hit her arm and the electricity stopped as she collapsed to the ground, twitching._

 _Fear quickly took of her body and she blinked, willing herself to the end of the hallway. Screw the plan, she would just crash some pod into the spaceship and blow it up from there._

 _Except... she didn't move an inch._

 _Rose Waters blinked again and again, her body desperate to will its particles to somewhere, anywhere, but nothing happened. She simply sat there like an idiot as two guards took her by the arms and laughed._

 _"You were right, Dave, she is Waters. Look at her blinking, trying to get away like an idiot!" One of them stated as the other smiled too._

 _"Told you I wasn't hallucinating her in and out of the cuffs! Man, we're going to get such a big promotion-"_

 _"Hey!" a sudden voice stated as everyone's attention began to get directed towards the voice. Wind. "Get away from the lady!"_

 _He didn't even wait for a response when he casually slipped the hand cuffs off and began to beat up the two men. And before the guards even got to try to lift up their weapons, they were kicked and punched as the other prisoners immediately started going wild and began attacking the other guards as Rose Waters backed against a wall, her eyes wide and creased with fear as her heart pounded harder and harder, electricity still buzzing through her body._

 _No teleporting... No teleporting... No teleporting..._

 _The fact that it was taken away just like that felt almost impossible in a sense. Her eyes looked at the ground to see a syringe, which seemed to have contained a substance that had taken away her powers... for the moment anyway. She should've been more careful, powers were easy to be dulled down, why did she have to teleport in and out of those cuffs? Rose gulped and prayed that this wouldn't last too long._

 _But possibly the worst fact of them all, was that freakin' Wind of all people was saving her. Saving her, the devious Rose Waters, from her sealed fate._

 _It was just embarrassing._

 _Once Wind had taken down the guards, he rushed over to Rose and, with some sort of trick with his hands, got her cuffs off and shook her by the shoulders._

 _"Hey, Waters, you hear me? Oh, damn, is your brain fried-"_

 _"I need to get away." Rose Waters whispered and blinked again, this time her body getting moved by barely a millimeter or two... not enough for anyone to notice, but it was enough to let a spark of relief light up her heart. It wasn't a very big dose... it would be alright..._

 _"Yeah, good idea." Wind replied as he practically dragged her up. However, the moment Rose Waters had gotten her footing right, she stumbled away from Wind, her eyes wide._

 _"_ I'm getting away." _Rose Waters hissed and took a few steps towards the hallway. She still had a mission to do. But the moment she took another step, a crashing headache from the combination of the electricity and drugs in her system, took over her mind as she began to fall down right into the arms of Wind._

 _"Let me help you." Wind muttered. "At least out of this place."_

 _"You owe me nothing." Rose Waters replied as she pushed herself away from Wind before leaning against a wall, the commotion still raging behind them as more and more guards got called in. "Why are you doing this?"_

 _"You're from Earth, aren't you?" Wind questioned, the mention of her home world making Rose's heart skip a beat. "You were taken, right? Probably by some alien. I imagine that you haven't had the best of a life-and neither have I. But we're the same species, so that has to mean something. We gotta help each other out."_

You don't even know what kind of life I had...

 _Rose blinked at his words and almost slapped herself for almost denying the pot of gold that was handed to her. With her slightly injured like this, she probably couldn't finish this mission alone... and here was this perfectly capable guy who seemed more than willing to aid her. Of course, Thanos would scold her to death if she even mentioned that she got help from someone, much less an Earthling, so she would just have to kill him when this was all over._

 _Rose Waters smiled and nodded at Wind, her blue eyes gleaming at the thought of chaos._

 _"You're right, we need to stick together."_

* * *

 **Wha-Bam.**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed and, while this might be a little late, I decided to add a little side note that I don't have a very regular posting schedule, but I typically try to post 2-3 times per week, usually once on the week-day, and another time on the weekend!**

 **Who's your favourite Avenger? Is it too cliche to say mine's Thor lol.**

 **Have a great day, beauties!**

 **~Emily**


	19. Chapter 19

**Forever**

Rose Waters appeared in New York City at her 'home'.

It wasn't much more than a small apartment that she had stayed in while attending school with Peter Parker. The moment she appeared, Rose Waters let out a groan and collapsed onto the floor, her hands clutching her stomach. She hadn't teleported quick enough, Iron Man or someone had hit her with their missile. She closed her eyes and willed the Tesseract away, desperate to make sure nobody else found it, before she crawled to her medical kit hidden underneath the couch and began to perform surgery on herself.

With a quick blow of anti-biotics and pain-killers, as well as a laser to mend her wounds, Rose Waters felt considerably better as she got up and did some stretches to refresh her mind. She then made her way over to her bedroom and tore off a piece of the floor board to reveal a hologram projector, which she then used to project several solar systems.

She was going to leave. In her mind, it was the safest option for her and the universe. If she ran, then nobody would find the Tesseract, era, Thanos could never destroy half the universe. It was simple, straight-forward, and terribly easy. Rose Waters easily found a deserted asteroid that she could spend a few weeks in and decided to pack up a little before leaving.

She easily grabbed a large, hikers' backpack and filled it with dehydrated food, water, some comfy clothes, and some technology. She took an extra pair of running shoes and her extra pair of leather gloves, as well as her medical kit and her rather large assortment of well-crafted knifes and guns.

Rose Waters lingered by her already overfilling bag and wondered if there was anything else she would need, almost seraching for a reason to stay on her planet for a little bit longer. But in her mind, she excused her actions for the fact that she could just feel that something was missing. Rose Waters snapped her fingers as a thought burst into her mind, of course, she needed a good old' fashioned muffin for the road.

She gracefully left her apartment, figuring that a good walk would do her some good, and made her way towards the bakery, the very same bakery that Dr. Strange had seen her enter only a few days ago. She casually slipped into line, a black hood desperately trying to cover her identity as she looked at the ground, the scent of fresh bread filling her nose. She savored it, this was the last time she would ever be here again.

"Hey, ROSIE." a sudden voice screamed as Rose Waters whipped her head at the direction of the voice, only to spot no one else but Michelle, the pretty, quirky girl with curly brown locks.

"MJ?" Rose Waters questioned, her lips widening into a smile. She probably shouldn't have just revealed herself so easily, but she figured that one last little meeting with her old friend might do her some good... besides, what could she do? Turn her in to the police? "What's up?"

"Not much, except for that the fact that you're freakin' famous!" MJ replied and casually opened her phone to show a shaky phone video of Rose Waters stabbing Doctor Strange to present him to Thanos. At the sight, Rose Waters flinched, for the first time truly realizing how bloody the entire thing was. How cruel it was. "This video's been watched, like, 740 million times, literally." Rose Waters fingers tingled, ready to teleport away before MJ would start crying or something. She didn't want anyone else to be made at her. "You uploaded it, huh? One question, why'd you make your channel name 'Anne Combe'... it's kind of a weird secret YouTube identity. Heck, it's weird that you even made a secret YouTube identity to begin with."

At her words, Rose Waters nodded her head frantically. "Yeah, totally, like, I edit videos in my spare time."

"Of course you do, but that was a really good job. Like, I totally believed the footage when I first saw it before the government released an official statement of what really happened." MJ winked at Rose Waters. "Or so they say, am I right? Anyways, what're you going to do with your new YouTube money?"

"Ummm... travelling." Rose Waters replied and gestured to her backpack before quickly changing the topic. "So... What're you doing here?" Rose questioned as MJ simply rolled her eyes and checked her phone.

"Parker said he'd meet me here to discuss our next Mathaletes competition." At her words, Rose Waters' heart skipped a beat as Michelle widened her eyes in joy. "Oh, perfect timing, Rosie! Peter's here now!"

"Oh, I should really get going-" Rose Waters began when MJ started screaming.

"YO, PETER! THE FREAKIN' YOUTUBE CELEBRITY IS HERE!"

"Oh, God." Rose Waters muttered as she adverted her eyes away.

"Really? Is Pewdiepie-" Peter began when he turned to see Rose Waters and his face paled as Rose Waters immediately morphed into another personality.

"Peter! Oh my God, do you remember what the answer to number five was on the physics test?" She asked, her voice overly sweet, but her eyes only loomed with threats as Peter grabbed Rose Waters by the arm rather harshly before turning to Michelle.

"Hey, this is... it's kind of a bad time, can we talk about the competition planning later?" He questioned as Michelle calmly raised an eyebrow.

"What, are you two dating or something?" She questioned when both of their faces paled, Rose's features turning almost ghost-like as Michelle laughed. "Oh my God, you guys are so stupid!"

"No, we're not dating." Rose Waters stated calmly as she turned to Peter and raised an eyebrow. "But, Peter, you should really get going with Michelle. I don't want you to mess up your competition because of this."

At her words, Peter crossed his arms, his eyes whispering of warning, before speaking, his voice detached. "No, I think I'll just tell you about the Physics homework you had problems with."

"Really?" Rose Waters questioned, her voice turning even more sickly sweet that it would make honey jealous. So sweet that it made Michelle raise an eyebrow at it, second thoughts clouding her mind about this Rose Waters chick. Maybe she was just some shallow, fake snob... "Because I actually wanted to talk a little about that guy... Spider-Man right? You know, I heard some rumors that he was-"

"Awesome, yeah." Peter cut in, gripping Rose's arm a little harder to warn her of what she plotting against him. "Yeah, SpiderMan's very cool and nobody needs to know what his secret identity is."

"Ahh, I see what's going on!" Michelle stated as she pressed her lips together in a smile. Both Peter and Rose's heads turned to face her, their faces coated in fear before she spoke. "This is secret code that you two want to get out of here to make-out! Like, Peter, don't you have some unorthodox obsession with Spider-Man-"

"Oh yeah, you figured it out!" Peter replied rather quickly before dragging Rose Waters towards the door and placing a quick kiss on her cheek, which Rose Waters immediately wiped off, a little disgusted. However, to other people, it seemed as if she was doing it in a playful type of manner. "Better get going, right love?"

Peter didn't even wait for a response before the two dove into the outside world and Rose Waters snapped her arm away from Spider-Man, her face full of disgust as she calmly began to remember what the asteroid looked like so she could teleport there. However, before she managed to solidify a picture of it in her mind, Peter grabbed her once more and pulled her the depths of an alleyway, away from the public eye.

"Bam, bam." Peter stated, each bam associated with a shoot of a spiderweb at Rose Waters. His cheeks were tinged with a bit of pink in... embarassment? What was it that he was embarrassed about? "...And you're officially arrested."

"Wait a minute..." Rose Waters questioned as she calmly teleported to a spot behind him, the spiderwebs still on her shirt as she calmly wiped them off. "Embarrassed... you're embarrassed!"

"I am not." Peter stated swiftly as Rose Waters widened her eyes and calmly dodged another one of his web shots.

"Oh yes you are... embarrassed about... about kissing me on the cheek?" At the sight of an even harder flush of his cheek, Rose Waters snapped her fingers, an almost childish grin on her face as she expertly evaded each and every one of Peter's webs that he shot. "Oh, you are!"

Peter quickly sent a punch, aiming for the chest, only for Rose Waters to teleport on top of a nearby dumpster, laughing this time. "My oh my, big ol' SpiderMan... was that your first kiss?"

"No!" Peter stated quickly as Rose Waters simply shrugged her shoulders and teleported to another side of the alleyway when Peter sent another web in her direction.

"Stop wasting your webbing, Parker." Rose Waters mumbled, the smile suddenly off of her face as she took a step backwards. "I'm leaving anyway."

"Leaving? To where? To kill others?" Peter asked, his voice going at a hundred miles an hour as Rose Waters rolled her eyes.

"To stop Thanos." She replied simply as Peter blinked his eyes once.

"I'm sorry, but I for one still don't know who the hell is Thanos."

"Not important. What is important is that he's this big bad guy who wants something that I have." Her words broke a little at the describing her master. It didn't feel right in a sense, she supposed. "And I have to hide it or else the entire universe is going..." She nodded her head a little as Peter Parker shook his head a little, but didn't shoot another web.

"You stabbed the wizard though! And... I'm guessing that purple guy was that Thanos dude..."

"It's complicated." Rose Waters explained simply.

"Then... then make it simple."

"Peter, you're stupid."

"I'm sorry, but I... I don't understand." Peter stated rather loudly as Rose Waters rolled her eyes and took a step backwards.

"You don't need to. All you need to know is that I'm not from here." Rose Waters puffed out her cheeks. "And I'm not talking about New York."

"That's obvious enough!" Peter replied. "Could kind of tell when you knew who Loki was... or when you could teleport! Come on, Rose, you can do some good here! I'm not backing down from my previous statement, I still think you're a good person!"

"THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T KNOW ME!" Rose Waters screamed, rage filling her senses. She expected Peter to back down, to be quiet, but she only got the opposite reaction from him.

"I think I'm the only one who does!" He yelled back as Rose Waters widened her eyes. "You might put on some stupid strong face-" She immediately pushed Spider-Man into his own mess of webs that he had shot earlier. She didn't need to hear this. She didn't want to hear this. She was a coward.

"-But I see through that! You're scared! So, so, so scared, and I know what that's like! I've been through that too-"

"YOU DON'T KNOW ME!" Rose Waters repeated her statement from before, hoping that maybe the second time will scare him off, but instead, it almost seemed to make him even more full of a voice.

"-You might've done some horrible things-"

"WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE FACT THAT I'M EVIL!" Rose Waters cried out at the top of her lungs. "I've always been evil! It was how I was raised, it's all I know! You don't UNDERSTAND, I didn't just kill two people, I'm the reason why MILLIONS aren't here today." A sob choked her throat and for the first time, Peter's face paled. But at the sight of him not talking, Rose Waters only let out another sob. "I'm a monster, Peter, and I'm sorry, but nothing can undo that. You just need to... to just get away from me. I'm evil. EVIL!"

Rose Waters sucked in a deep breath of air and closed her eyes once more. This was it, she was going to get to some asteroid and live her life running... maybe spending the rest of her in misery will make the universe forgive her for a percent of the crimes she's committed.

And then Peter spoke, his voice as soft as a child's.

"You're not evil."

And then someone landed behind them, the voice soft as glowing ropes chained around Rose Waters, trapping her in as the Sorcerer Supreme stepped out of the darkness.

"You sure about that?"

* * *

 **So... that just happened.**

 **Who do you like better? Conflicted Rosie or Bad-Ass-I'm-Going-To-Murder-Everyone Rosie? (AKA Present vs Past Rose)**

 **Thank you so much for sticking for far into this journey! I hope you all have a wonderful day!**

 **~Emily**


	20. Chapter 20

**For Love**

"Nebula, please tell your little friend to release me." Rose Waters stated rather simply as Nebula too appeared out of the shadows and put a robotic hand on Strange's arm. However, he didn't release the grip on Rose Waters' body.

"I'm sorry... Nebula," Dr. Strange stated, obviously unsure of what to call her. "But the last thing I recall, Rose Waters was the one who started this all in the first place."

"I also helped you escape." Rose Waters added, her eyes narrowed as Nebula nodded her head in reassurance. "If I wanted you in the deafening grip of Thanos, Doctor, then, trust me, you would be."

"Wizard dude!" Peter Parker shouted and ran his hands through his hair. "You're alive... and still have the stone?"

"Yes, quite." Strange replied as he finally let go of Rose Waters' bonds, but kept a trained eye on her. After all, she seemed to switch sides a little too easily.

"And why did you come back." Rose Waters added and turned her head to Nebula. "I thought I told you to go somewhere far, far away not... not Terra out of all places!"

"Well last I heard, Terra is one of the safest places in the galaxy!" Nebula hissed back. "Strange mentioned the Avengers being here and Mantis recently sent me a message that the Guardians were coming here as well. If we even want a chance that this stone is safe, we need to strengthen out army, not run."

"Running is the only thing we can do!" Rose Waters screamed as she ran her hands through her hair. "My God... If Thanos gets that Time Stone, he'll be on the brink of... of unstoppable!"

"Isn't he already?" Strange replied as Rose Waters shook her head rapidly.

"He already has three stones... and... and..." She took in a sharp breath and turned back to Strange, her eyes wide. "He's going to kill me."

"So what're you going to do?" Nebula questioned and took a step towards her. "Run again, _little sister?"_

"Wait... wha..." Peter mumbled as Rose Waters rolled her eyes at his ignorance.

"Not biologically. Thanos adopted us." Rose Waters explained as Peter Parker widened his eyes even larger, Dr. Strange even raising an eyebrow.

"You're... You're his daughter?!" Spider-Man exclaimed as Rose Waters ignored him and stared hard at Nebula.

"Listen, I'm going to... somewhere far, far away. That way, two stones won't be on Earth."

"You have another stone?" Nebula questioned as Rose Waters shook her head frantically. She knew that if Nebula was captured, Thanos would be able to replay this exact conversation and... and would know.

"I know that the Tesseract is somewhere on Earth... I can feel it." To put Nebula off her trail when, in truth, the Tesseract was in a place that was known by Rose Waters and Rose Waters alone. "And... And the soul stone... nobody-" She started when Nebula grabbed Rose Waters by the shoulders.

"Gamora! Where is she?" She questioned sharply as Rose Waters fumbled her eyebrows together.

"This place called... called Wakanda... why?"

"She knows the location of the Soul Stone, idiot!" Nebula screamed and began to run towards her ship which stood hidden in the shadows. "... And... and Thanos knows where she is!"

Rose Waters' eyes widened. Thanos ran so they could... could plan a strike to take Gamora... to make them think that they were off their tail and to bring Strange in all at the same time. A two for one...

"We can't take a ship, grab my arm." Rose Waters whispered harshly as everyone looked at her curiously. "I'll teleport us to Wakanda."

"Isn't that hard?" Nebula whispered as Rose Waters simply shrugged and took in a deep breath.

"Might wind me out a little, but nothing I can't handle." She explained as everyone slowly, almost hesitatly, put a hand on her bare arm as she shut her eyes and took in a deep breath.

And just like that, the team of four were gone.

* * *

 _"Where are we going?" Wind mustered as Waters simply raised an eyebrow playfully._

 _"This isn't my first rodeo, trust me." She answered as she casually began to make her way to where the pods should be. "We need to get off this planet."_

 _"True." Wind replied and snapped his fingers with a grin of realization. "Wait a minute, we should go back to Earth together!"_

 _"What? No!" Waters shouted back a little too quickly as Wind shot at a few guards with a gun that he had unarmed from another guard. Rose Waters had to admit, Wind was a pretty good shot for a petty criminal. "Earth is... it's just there you know. The people there are soft and... and they'll never accept us!" Rose Waters replied, her voice rather passionate as Wind wrinkled his brow and shot the last guard._

 _"Trust me, the people on that planet are not soft." Wind mumbled as he shot another few guards. "I might've only lived there for about eleven years give or take, but the people there are complex, and while their machinery is still... well, not the best, their people are geniuses and vary incredibly from person to person."_

 _"Oh." Rose Waters replied rather softly as she kicked a guard in the face and searched his pockets for a knife._

 _"Here, take the gun." Wind whispered softly before handing the girl the unconscious guard's weapon, which Rose Waters slowly took. Of course she knew how to operate a gun, but it wasn't her weapon of choice per say... and it wasn't like she could just teleport her favorite dagger back to her hand with her stupid disabling liquid in her._

 _"When were you taken?" Wind asked softly as Rose Waters narrowed her eyes at his words._

 _"Taken? You mean liberated?" Rose Waters hissed as Wind creased his forehead before widening his eyes in realization as Rose Waters threw the gun at a guard's face rather than shot with it, the gun hitting off of three men before dropping to the ground._

 _"You were only a child, weren't you?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters calmly snapped the neck of two other guards, her fury coming out with her aggressive actions._

 _"Shut up." Rose Waters replied as she finally managed to find the escape pods and began to open the pod bay door._

 _"That would explain your resistance onto going to Earth and your trained fighting skills." Wind continued before crossing his arms. "But you deflected... and now you just need to get away."_

 _Rose Waters took in a deep breath and analyzed her situation carefully. She needed to play her right cards... the right hand... She had to make this impossibly stupid human believe her, trust her even... and she couldn't be herself to do that._

 _So, she let out a soft, faked cry and turned her head to the man. "What gave it away?"_

 _"Hey, it's alright." Wind whispered, his voice full of affection as Rose Waters wiped her dry eyes and took in a depe snifle through her nose. This was easy, almost like taking candy from a child._

 _"Maybe... maybe this Earth plan doesn't sound so bad after all..." Rose Waters continued, her voice incredibly careful onto what words would come out. "I mean, a little less action doesn't seem like a bad idea around now."_

 _There was hints of true honesty in her words, something Rose Waters wasn't expecting to come out as Wind nodded carefully before she continued. "But... but the pod... It can only go so far, we would need to steal a ship of some sort to get to Earth."_

 _"Yeah, but which kind of place just has a bunch of spaceships barely guarded?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters faked deep thought before speaking._

 _"The... the Mothership! We call it the Guardian, right?" She questioned, her eyes wide. "I'm sure they have plenty of ships that are just left in the bay landing zone, more than enough for us to... to take and go!"_

 _At her words, Wind snapped his fingers, a smile dancing on his face. "You're right! It'll be easy, and a pod like this will easily get through security!"_

 _"Yeah!" Rose Waters replied, true enthuiasm in her voice as she got into the pod, Wind following close behind her._

 _"Let's do this, Waters."_

* * *

The group landed in Wakanda with a sharp landing.

"Sorry." Rose Waters muttered as they all glanced at their surroundings, Peter leaning over to his side.

"I think I'm gonna throw up." He whispered softly as a sudden spear striked the ground besides Rose Waters, who simply glanced at it, unamused.

"That was a warning shot." Okoye whispered harshly as she held another spear in her hand, ready to take a shot. Her arm was still roughly banaged from the last time they had seen eachother and a dozen or so other warriors stood by her. "Move or even blink and next time, I swear to you, I won't miss."

Rose Waters blinked.

When it was obvious that no spear was being hurled at her, Rose Waters gave the bald lady a sickly sweet grin.

"I don't appreciate liars, Human." She snarled as Nebula took a step forward, immedaitely making everyone stiffen at her odd look.

"We're the good guys." She hissed. "This is Doctor Strange, put down your weapons... before we make you."

"And how will you do that?" Okoye shouted back as Rose Water took a step forward, this time causing the lady to release her spear so that it came hurling towards her. However, with a simply blink, the speak ended up in the ground behind her.

"Like that." Rose Waters replied simply as Okoye smiled.

"We know."

And just like that, a sudden shock rocked the ground beneath them as the four heroes fell to the ground, electricity flowing through their veins as the lady let out a war cry right. Rose Waters let out a cry as memories hissed throughout her mind, the taser from the guard, her powers being taken from her, the mission... oh, the failed mission.

Wind.

The thought was enough to make her scream. She couldn't do this, not again.

And that was when Iron Man showed up.

"What's the commotion-?" He started when he spotted Doctor Strange gettng pulled away from the ground by his cape and Spider-Man desperately trying to shoot out a web to swing away. "Hey, hey, hey, stop that! Those are my guys!"

"DIE!" Rose Waters screamed as she threw her dagger at Okoye, causing it to get lodged within her chest as she blinked, causing the still electricity buzzing spear to land in her hand. However, the electricity didn't scare her, it only made her feel alive... and angry. She immediately snapped it over her knee and threw the pointy end at another warrior as everyone immedaitely began to throw their fire.

"Everyone stand down!" Captain America shouted, suddenly at the scene as Rose Waters began to slowly walk over to where the Wakandans were standing, her arm suddenly whipped out with a long sword that had suddenly appeared in her hand.

"You guys want to see how a child of Thanos really fights?" Rose Waters hissed as Doctor Strange quickly gathered his bearings to start shouting at her.

"Stand down, Rose Waters!" He shouted, but the girl seemed deaf as she continued to pursue the warriors, who all held their ground as Okoye groaned in pain.

"Medic!" Tony screamed as dozens of other warriors came rushing to the scene, the entire sight only making Rose Waters even more angry.

 _She_ was doing the right thing. _She_ risked her life for this. _SHE BETRAYED EVERYTHING SHE KNEW_... for... for THIS.

It was outrageous to say the least. It was unfair. Unjust.

And everyone should've known by now just how Rose Waters felt about attacking.

"You want to play?" Rose Waters screamed as she held up her sword at the men and women who only continued to hold their spears, ready for the chance to throw it at the lunatic of a girl.

"Rose, stand down!" Nebula screamed as Rose Waters only screamed back.

"Don't tell me what to do!" She yelled as she stomped on the ground as if she was a little girl throwing a tantrum. "NOBODY can tell ME what to do!"

"Rose... You don't want to do this." Peter whispered as Rose Waters' legs shook violently.

"They're trying to kill me!" Rose Waters screamed right as someone attempted to shoot a spear at the girl, which immediately got teleported to the ground a hundred meters or so behind them. "They're ALL trying to kill me!"

"Rose Waters, you're scared. It's alright, we won't hurt you." Doctor Strange muttered as Rose Waters simply pointed angrily at Iron Man.

"Tell HIM that!" She yelled, referring to the fact that all of his weapons were out in the open for Rose Waters to see.

"Actually, we do want to hurt her." T'Challa stated, suddenly coming into the conversation as medics quickly began to take care of Okoye. T'Challa was slightly surprised that nobody seemed to open fire on Rose Waters yet... But then again, he supposed that all they could really see was that they would only be murdering a child. "She killed four of our men and escaped from our custody only four and half hours ago... and she also has the Tesseract."

"I'm just trying to save the universe!" Rose Waters screamed back, her sword still out as insanity slowly seemed to take a hold on her mind. "What-"

However, before she could finish, Iron Man sent out a shot at the girl, once again trying to do it as she was in a speech.

But this time, Rose Waters was expecting it, so she teleported to a section of land that was a hundred meters or so behind Nebula, her head quirked up at Iron Man as a tear slid down her cheek.

"You're all going to die!" Rose Waters hissed as she took a step backwards. "And... And this time, I won't be here to save you."

She blinked and in that moment, she could feel what was going to happen next. There was really no other explanation for it, she knew that he was here. That the end had arrived at long last.

"He's here." She whispered softly and glanced at Nebula before giving her an incredibly false smile. "Nebula, let's throw dear old Dad a little welcome back package."

* * *

 **In honor for End Game tickets (finally) being sold, I'm posting a little chapter!**

 **I'm literally so happy I got my tickets (which came at the price of sleep deprivation) and I'm definitely freaking out that it's coming out in 23 days!**

 **Who else is as excited?**

 **Have an incredible day!**

 **~Emily**


	21. Chapter 21

**Beauty within the Beast**

 _"Can I ask you one question?" Wind questioned as they began to shoot towards the clouds._

 _"What?" Rose Waters questioned as she pressed a button to let them go up a little more steathily. Rose Waters still had plenty of time before her mission needed to be completed, she could... entertain Wind for a few more minutes longer than required._

 _"What's your real name?" At the words, Rose Waters pinched her lips together as Wind continued. "I mean, I'm not stupid, it's obviously not Waters... unless, of course, it is, which you know, in that case, it's totally fine, but..."_

 _"You're rambling." Rose Waters interuptted as she turned her him. "And Waters is my real name... the only name that I've ever really known, I suppose."_

 _"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry." Wind replied as Rose Waters simply shrugged, a small smile on my lips._

 _"I don't really mind, actually." Rose Waters continued as she pressed a few buttons on the control panel. "I love this life, and I wouldn't trade it for the world."_

 _"Really?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters nodded truthfully as a moment of realization fell upon his face. "Oh, yes, you've never been on Earth... I forgot... To you, this is normal."_

 _"No, I've never thought my life was normal, actually." Rose Waters admitted as she glanced up at the Mothership that sinked closer and closer towards them. She had spent all of last night memorizing the outside layout, looking for some sort of flaw, and half an hour before her mission began, she found it, the pod bay doors. All she had to do was come in, kill a couple dozen people, and be on her merry way. "But it's my life, isn't it? And, while many people do indeed think on the contrary, I believe what I'm doing is for the greater good."_

 _A moment of silence passed by the two as Wind scratched the back of his neck and spoke. "You know, you're pretty wise for a bad-ass."_

 _At his words, half a grin appeared on Rose Waters' face. "Did you ever doubt it?"_

 _Another moment of silence, this one tingling in the air for a little longer until Wind spoke once more._

 _"My name's not actually Wind." He admitted and bit the bottom of his lip in worry. "Well, it kind of is, but well, not really... sorry, I'm rambling... My real name is Kevin. Kevin Windack."_

 _"What a strange name." Rose Waters replied as Kevin laughed._

 _"Actually, it's much more normal on Earth than, well, than Waters." He quietly nudged her with his elbow. "Maybe we should think of a new name for you once we get to Earth... something more human-like."_

 _"Yeah." Rose Waters whispered back and nodded her head. "Yeah, maybe we should."_

 _Another moment of silence as the two began to close in the landing bay doors before Rose Waters broke the silence._

 _"What about Rose?"_

 _And for a second, Rose Waters wanted to slap herself. There it was, her secret identity... and now she had to kill him. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to put the pieces together._

 _But, apparently, Earthlings tended to be a bit on the dimmer side._

 _"Yeah, Rose." Wind nodded his head at her words and smiled. "Rose... That's a very beautiful and human-like name-"_

 _"-For the most unhuman human in the galaxy." Rose Waters replied, a sly grin on her face as she finished the words like how Thanos would've. In her mind, she almost felt as if she had made him proud... if that was even possible of course._

 _Wind laughed, this stupid little laugh that took up the sound waves in the ship and almost sounded a little like a pig._

 _But the sound made something twist in Rose's stomach and a little peek of a true smile land on her face, happiness for a brief moment filling her lungs and soul before she let out a laugh herself. When was the last time she had laughed like that?... with Loki perhaps... And the Lord knew that it's been all to long she had seen him._

 _"You're funny, Rose." Wind stated as Rose Waters simply smiled before crashing the ship into the landing bay._

* * *

"He's here." Nebula whispered as she caught faint sight of his ship behind the clouds before she turned over to the men and women still focused on Rose Waters. "Thanos is back... and this time, I don't think he's leaving without Gamora and the Time Stone."

"And he won't be getting it." Strange replied as everyone's attention immediately shifted to the true matter at hand.

"You, alert everyone else. Make sure every civilian is safe." Tony shouted at someone random, who immediately followed his directions as Doctor Strange turned around and floated over to Rose Waters via his cape.

"The Tesseract will be safer with me, Miss. Waters." Doctor Strange whispered as Rose Waters face only tightened into a harsh smile.

"Wrong." She replied as she casually began to walk away. "Now, if you don't mind, I plan on leaving this planet alive."

"We need you though!" Peter shouted as Rose Waters simply twirled around, an eyebrow casually raised.

"Should've said that before you all tried to attack me." Rose Waters snapped as Iron Man sent out a warning missile a few meters away from Rose Waters, to which she turned around and held her sword out as Tony Stark simply stared at the girl.

"I don't think so. Last time you said you were on our side, you ended up hitting that guy and running off with the purple dude." Tony Stark reminded the young girl. "Right now, I don't think we need any more enemies on our side, so please, either come with us to the palace and don't do a thing, so we'll drag you there by force."

Rose Waters stared at Iron Man, her mind whirling through calculations. Then, almost as if it was a spur of a moment kind of thing, she casually twirled her sword back to it's hiding place and held her arms into the air.

"Okay fine. Arrest me."

* * *

 _"You sure you know what you're doing?" Wind questioned as Rose Waters casually began to snap the neck of yet another guard._

 _"Yup, I told you, trust me." She replied as she let out a flurry of kicks at numerous soldiers before the two hid behind a spaceship. "All these ships aren't loaded with fuel and we won't even make it out of the system using them." She casually took a dead man's gun and shot three times at the guards who were firing at her, all three shots hitting them dead. "The best ships are on the other side of the ship, inside a guarded room. With those, even if they didn't have boom tubes, we'd still make it back to Earth without a pit stop."_

 _Rose Waters wasn't lying, the ships in their current pod bay were all typically run down or confiscated from criminals, after all, what kind of Empire puts their best weapons up front practically begging to be stolen?_

 _"So you're telling me that we have to go through this entire Mothership to actually get to a ship?" Wind questioned and for a moment, Rose Waters thought he was going to throw a tantrum. However, he only smiled and reloaded his gun. "This is going to be fun."_

 _"Yes, indeed." Rose Waters replied with a sly grin as she shot once more before gesturing to him to run, where they both began to sprint towards the nearest door, to which Rose Waters managed to pry open and slip through, Wind on her tail._

 _"Strong. What kind of drugs are in you?" He questioned as Rose Waters only smiled._

 _"All natural." She replied when the truth was too many to count. She was already an... enhanced human due to her teleporting capabilities, which enhanced her overall muscle strength and speed already, but Thanos wouldn't due with some... some mediocre soldier. He needed, wanted, the best for his elite soldiers. One of Rose Waters' earliest memories were of Thanos hooking her onto a machine, his large, rough hands patting down her brilliant blond hair as he whispered into her ear._

You're going to be great.

 _He wasn't lying._

 _"Come on, this way." Rose Waters whispered as she dove through the hallways, navigating the best she could to the location of the ship's reactor core. Her hands pressed against the wall, searching for the hum of power as Wind obediently followed behind her._

 _"You sure know your way around." He muttered as an alarm suddenly got sounded, everyone now on alert of the invaders of the Mother ship._

 _"Yeah, I know ships." Rose Waters replied simply as she found where the humming seemed to be getting louder and louder, her hands continuing to press against the walls as a large group of guards appeared, to which Wind, being the gentleman he was, offered to take down as Rose Waters continued down the hallway, where the humming increased so much that she could feel it just by standing on the ground._

 _And it was then when a soldier appeared from practically out of nowhere, gun in hand._

 _At the sight, Rose's base instincts took over and she blinked._

 _And to her great surprise, she appeared behind the man and her animal instincts kicked in, making her stab her elbow into his spine, crippling any chance of him walking again._

 _Rose Waters took in a sharp breath and widened her eyes. Her powers were back... not entirely of course, but enough. Enough that she possibly didn't need Wind anymore, she could do the rest of this on her own..._

 _"Easy as pie." Wind stated, suddenly coming into the new hallway, a half-grin on his face as Rose Waters only smiled back. No, she needed him, of course she did, and even if she didn't, well, it didn't hurt to have a little backup._

 _"Rose Waters is on the ship. Send-" A hoarse voice spoke as Rose Waters looked down at the guard who had his bloody hand pressed against his ear. Alive. Of course he was, that was her luck after all. With a sharp kick at his neck, the man stopped talking, possibly forever, and Rose Waters smiled back at Wind._

 _"Yeah, I think the ships might be in here." She replied as she kicked open the nearby door, her hands suddenly alive with power as they entered the reactor room, where nuclear fusion seemed to happen... the energy that powered the ship._

 _Along with dozens of guards of course._

 _"I'll take the ones on the left." Rose Waters stated rather quickly as she jumped down from the steps and easily began to take down the guards on the left as Wind widened his eyes._

 _"But... we don't need-" He started when someone attempted to shoot at him. At the shot, Wind rolled his eyes. "What the heck." He then proceeded to shoot people on the right._

 _In exactly half a minute, Rose Waters managed to take down everyone on the left hand side and went to the control panel, where she easily managed to reroute the power to the one main engine of the ship. Within two minutes, the power would become too much for the ship to handle and that engine would break down... which meant that there was no other place for the power go to but inside, where it would self destruct._

 _She kicked a lever, jamming it in place and gave herself a self satisfied grin as she began to march away towards Wind when she heard a vague, dying voice._

 _"You're not going to get away with this, Waters..." It spoke as Rose Waters calmly turned her head to the dying man. "The Nova Corps are coming and hundreds of men are going to stop-" Before he could finish, Rose Waters shot him and casually moved on with her life as she quickly found Wind and began to drag him away._

 _"Come on, we need to leave. Now." She informed him as he stumbled to catch up._

 _"What?"_

 _"Well, you know, only that hundreds of guards are going to be attacking us right at this moment." She responded right as she began to hear footsteps bang on the ground._

 _"Well, then we take them out. Waters' style." he replied rather playfully, as if the two were invincible as Rose Waters bit her lip. She didn't exactly think this part through, the plan was always that she would just teleport back to Thanos' ship now that her plan was done... but she didn't even know if she could do that with her powers still on the fritz... and Wind..._

 _"Yeah, well, we're kind of running out of time." She commented as the footstep pounds turned louder and louder as Rose Waters fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears. She just wanted some freakin' silence, was that too much to ask?_

 _"What do you mean?" Wind questioned back as Rose Waters continued to walk over, where she spotted a window. Her mind spun with so many calculations that it became rather dizzy as the footsteps turned louder and louder that it almost felt as if they were walking on her skull._

 _Thirty seconds before the engine would below up. Twenty until the guards came._

 _She needed a miracle to get out of this._

 _And, to her great surprise, a miracle did come through the window..._

 _In the form of a Nova Corps ship._

 _At the sight, Rose Waters grinned and she didn't think. She only did._

 _She spotted a room within the ship's window, and before she knew it, she was grabbing onto Wind's arm, a smile on her face._

 _And then they were gone only to be landed on a Nova Corps ship, where Rose Waters immediately killed everyone in the room before running over to the pilot seat, killing him, and turning the ship around to get as far away from the mothership as possible, a smile on her face. The universe really was looking out for her. It knew just what good Rose Waters was doing and it was rewarding her with her life and the life of Wind! Everything was going to be beautiful._

 _That is, until Rose Waters felt the pain of a laser beaming through her shoulder as she collapsed on the controls, her eyes looking for her attacker only to spot the eyes of no other than Kevin Windack._

* * *

 **Thanks for reading this far!**

 **~Emily**


	22. Chapter 22

**WARNING: The flashback portion of this chapter is quite messed up... if you don't want to read it, please skip the italics part of it.**

 **Explanations**

 _"You're her." Wind whispered softly as he continued to point a gun at Rose Waters as she groaned in pain. "You're... You're that maniac, Rose Waters!"_

 _...and even though Rose Waters had been called a million more vile insults to her... even though she had been electricuted and beaten and broken and damaged and insulted more times than she could ever recall... even though she was_ Rose Waters _no words have ever struck her harder._

 _No words ever hurt her deeper._

 _"I saved your life." Rose Waters replied as she grabbed at the counter and spit out blood, her eyes shut as Wind replied, his voice shaking._

 _"I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid." he whispered softly, almost as if he had turned insane as Rose Waters turned around, her sudden movements enough for Wind to stumble backwards, his mouth open and his lips dry as Rose Waters let out a scream._

 _"I'M SAVING YOUR LIFE, WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT!" She yelled, her voice roaring louder than a thousand suns as Wind still held the gun shakily in his hands, his soul truly witnessing the coming out of a monster. At the sight of the gun, Rose Waters kicked it out of his hands, almost insulted that he would think that something like that could kill her, as Wind started walking backwards, his eyes wide as Rose Waters raised her head._

 _"Thanos... oh God, you're Thano's kid..."_

 _"And I'm proud!" Hissed Rose Waters as she advanced towards him. She... she didn't want him to be afraid of her... didn't want him to think of her as a monster... Because she wasn't... he just didn't_ understand. " _You_... _you can join me." Her eyes gleamed as she took another step towards him, a large, horrifying smile spreading on her cheeks. "Yes, you can join me! Thanos would be overjoyed to have a new addition to his glorious army! You would be welcomed with open arms, Wind!"_

 _It all seemed clear to her. Wind would go to Thanos as nothing more than a man wanting to serve the greatest cause in the solar system. Wind would fight with her, side by side, and maybe... maybe for once Waters wouldn't feel as... as..._

 _No, she wasn't any bad emotions. She was strong, proud, and happy to be given this life. She should be on her knees, thanking Thanos for giving her the life that everyone wanted to have... That everyone should have._

 _She looked back at Wind, expecting him to bow down to her in tears, telling her that he will be forever in debt to her. That it had always been his dream to join Thanos and that he didn't know how he could ever repay her... That what she was doing was a favour._

 _But instead, a look of pure hatred spread over his features as he narrowed his eyes at the girl, a sudden sense of bravery spreading through his body. Or suicide. "Thanos is mad!... and you are too!"_

 _This moment had happened before. Too many times before. She had men, women, children, and even families stand before her in the exact same position that Wind was in right now. Yelling at her that she's insane, crying about how someone, a child at that, be able to commit the attrocities that she did... Telling her that they will never bow to someone as insane as Thanos._

 _She should've been used to it by now._

 _But she wasn't... at least, not from Wind... she truly thought that he was different, he had no trouble killing those soldiers..._

 _In the dark window of the ship, Rose Waters eyes spotted the brightest of lights flash in the view, immediately pushing the ship back by a couple of kilometers as Rose Waters held her ground. The task was done, Thanos would be proud. Tens of thousands have died, with billions still yet to come._

 _Yet Rose Waters felt nothing._

 _But Wind was another story._

 _"You... you did that." He whispered softly and gripped at his shirt as he took in a breathe of air, almost choking as tears ran down his cheeks. "You... You killed all of them... and now... and now more are going to die! Die!" His hands grabbed at his hair as he let out a scream, heat rushing throughout his body as he continued. "AND I HELPED YOU!"_

 _"You don't understand!" Rose Waters screamed as she took a step towards Wind, instantly making him jump backwards to cower into a corner. "This was for the greater good! You should be proud, we just saved trillions for a better life!"_

 _"You're a monster." Wind choked out as Rose Waters took another step towards him, anger truly taking over her body as she grabbed him by the collar so that his face was only inches away from her's._

 _"I." Rose Waters whispered and Wind could've sworn that he saw tears in the still-young girl's eyes. "Am. Not. A. MONSTER!"_

 _Wind's only response was a whimper as Rose Waters threw him on the ground rather harshly, her power coursing through her body as she let out a scream in anger. When she turned around to look at him once more, he flinched and huddled even tighter into a ball as Rose Waters fought the urge to cry._

Why didn't he understand?

 _"How can you live with yourse-?"_

" _SHUT UP!" Rose Waters screamed, and before she knew it, a piece of familiar metal was in her hand and gone._

 _To be stuck in Kevin's chest, stabbing him right in the heart._

 _Blood began to pool on the ground and before another moment could pass, Kevin's limp body fell on the ground, dead._

 _And for a single moment, Rose Waters' mind stopped functioning._

 _Everything stopped. Her lungs stopped moving, her blood stopped flowing, her brain stopped sending signals, and her muscles tensed as more and more red blood began to pool, inching slowly towards her feet._

 _And then everything crashed into Rose Waters' body all at once._

 _"No." Rose Waters spoke, her voice weak and fragile. "No, no, no, no." Her voice broke as she shook her head at Kevin, tears falling onto the ground as she took in deeper and deeper breaths as she sank to her knees, her hands letting go of her sword as her hands frantically grabbed at Kevin's wound as he sank against a wall, limp. Dead._

 _"No." Rose Waters said again, her voice unnaturally high with guilt. "No, no, no, Kevin no."_

 _She grabbed at his wound and pressed against it, her hands shaking at his shirt as she continued to shake her head, her mouth opening and closing as she frantically tried to speak words to announce something, anything._

 _"Kevin you're okay." Rose Waters begged as she grabbed at the dead man's collar, her hands suddenly giving his shirt a death grip. "You're okay, I can fix this. I can fix everything... It's alright... We're going to Earth... Kevin, we're going to Earth and we're... we're going to live a normal life... Kevin please, don't, I'm... I'm..."_

 _She let out a sob, and bowed her head to be pressed against the blood on his chest, which transferred onto her face, staining her fair skin, as a sudden fury of anger burst through her heart before she reached back and punched him in the face._

 _"You idiot!" She screamed, her voice so loud that it echoed throughout the ship. "You idiot, you idiot, YOU IDIOT! This is YOUR fault! This is all YOUR fault!"_

 _No response came from the corpse._

 _"You... You tied my hands." Rose Waters whispered, begging for his lost spirit to see it in her point of view. She suddenly teleported a dagger in her hand and, without warning, pressed it into the dead man's chest again and again, her eyes bursting with tears as she continued to speak. "You... you shouldn't have gotten arrested! You SHOULD'VE accepted my OFFER, YOU should've figured it out sooner you STUPID idiot!"_

 _"It's YOUR FAULT!" She cried as she punched him in the cheek._

 _But it didn't make Rose Waters feel any better. It didn't make her feel anything at all._

* * *

"Do you guys mind if you watch Miss. Crazy for a little bit?" Tony Stark questioned as Wanda simply gave her a death glare.

"You took him from me." Wanda snapped as Rose Waters sat down, her blue eyes concentrated on the series of mini ships that began to crash in the distance. Her hands buzzed with power, with anticipation. Her body could just feel that the stones were near... and so many were near...

"You have better things to do than worry about me." Rose Waters snapped back as Wanda simply gave her a death glare, obviously disgusted by her.

"Gamora and Nebula will stay here too to keep you company." Peter Quill stated as he quickly reloaded his gun as Gamora rolled her eyes at her boyfriend's statement. "Hey, Thanos is coming for you. We need to keep you safe." Peter replied as Rose Waters shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"How do we know that Waters isn't going to kill all of us?" Wanda questioned, to which Nebula replied.

"Because she would've done that a long time ago if that was her end game." Nebula whispered as Doctor Strange quickly wrapped up the last of his wounds before cracking his neck, ready for the final battle.

"I need some water." Rose Waters stated and turned to a guard before giving him a sickly sweet smile. Now a days, it almost felt like her trademark. "Would you be a dear?"

The guards stared at Rose Waters, almost in disgust since she had literally just murdered some of his close friends, before slowly turning around and beginning to make his way towards the cooler where water was being kept.

"This is stupid." Gamora stated before running her hands through her hair. "Me and Nebula should be out there fighting not... not trying to hide away."

"I can send you somewhere safe." Rose Waters blurted out and ran her hand through her hair.

"That's not nesserary, the Avengers are strong enough to defeat them." Scarlet Witch blurted out. "Especially now since they're all working together as a unit."

"They didn't look like a unit to me." Nebula whispered harshly. "The one with armour and the other in the blue costume and beard... They don't seem to be having the smoothest of relationships."

"We had our quarrels." Wanda admitted. "But when it comes down to it, they're going to work together to save the Earth."

"And we should bet the universe over these 'Avengers'?" Rose Waters questioned before her eyes shot to another person entering the room.

"Kid, this is for your own good." Tony Stark stated as he practically dragged Peter Parker into the room. "I would kill myself if you got hurt and besides, if all else fails, you can help defend everyone."

"I can do way more damage on the field than in a stupid room!" Spider-Man yelled in response as Tony Stark simply shook his head.

"Peter, you never should've came... You... You know just how dangerous this is. This is for your own good." And on that note, Tony Stark pushed Spider-Man into the room and ran off to face the looming threat. However, before he pressed his chest for his suit, he turned around and connected eyes with Rose Waters. "I'm keeping you here, alive, for one reason and one reason alone, Waters. If absolutely ANYTHING goes wrong, you get these people out of here." He paused for a moment and took in a deep breath. "You have to promise me... just ease my mind..."

Rose Waters blinked once and for a moment, she could see every ounce of fear and pressure in Tony Stark's mind. It was plastered over his face, his shaky hands, and serious attitude. He was serious... more than serious, actually, he was... scared.

"I promise." Rose Waters swore as Tony Stark took in a deep breath before heading off right as the guard came back with a tall glass of water.

"Why thank you." Rose Waters stated as she teleported the man to her, making him flinch, some water spilling on the ground as Rose Waters creased her forehead. "Shame. Oh well."

"That isn't very funny, Rose." Gamora hissed as she began to sharpen her knife as Rose Waters rolled her eyes.

"And I'm sure you're an expert on comedy, huh Gamora." She added as Peter Parker paced back and forth throughout the room.

"Mr. Stark needs our help..." He whispered and ran his hands through his hair. "How can you guys be so calm?"

"Hey, worst case scenerio, I teleport us out of here." Rose Waters reminded him and shrugged. "We're essentially untouchable."

"You can really teleport so many people? You seemed pretty winded us sending three other people to Wakanda." Peter pointed out as Rose Waters simply shrugged.

"I have my... ways to gain power." Rose Waters replied as Nebula spoke.

"Stop acting like we're all stupid, Waters." Nebula cut in, her voice as sharp as a dagger. "We all know that you have the Space Stone in your possession."

Rose Waters head turned to look at Nebula, her eyes narrowed. "Great, Nebula, now I'm going to have to kill you."

A sharp dagger suddenly appeared in Rose Waters' hand and she reached to take the eight slices at the machine that would be fatal, when Peter Parker squirted webbing at Rose Water's hand and knife, making it slick and useless.

"Hey, hey, hey, nobody's killing anyone!" Peter Parker shouted as Rose Waters simply plucked at the spider web, annoyed.

"He's right, Rose, you're not killing Nebula! She's an asset, not an enemy!" Gamora shouted back as Wanda simply watched everything unfold.

"We all know why Thanos knows that Gamora knows where the soul stone is." Rose Waters stated rather simply. "If she gets captured again, he'll find out that I have the Tesseract and he'll kill me to get it, you know, before wiping out half of the universe." Rose Waters calmly looked back up at the three before grinning. "I'm just doing what's reasonable, you guys, now come on, I'll make sure it's quick."

"You're insane." Wanda shot out, and to everyone's great surprise, it was Gamora who snapped back.

"She spent her entire life under the hand of Thanos!" Gamora screamed, making everyone stare at her. "Cut her some slack! It's a miracle that she even deflected to begin with!"

At her words, Rose Waters' knees buckled ever so slightly as Wanda simply looked at Gamora and to Rose Waters, her eyes looming with some sense of... of pity.

"You're all idiots." Rose Waters replied simply as Peter Parker simply raised an eyebrow, suddenly annoyed at her attitude.

"I'm sorry, but someone is on your side over here and you just... just call them an idiot?" Spider-Man questioned before crossing his arms. "What's your problem."

"My problem is that the last time I had a real friend, he died." Rose Waters replied coldly. "My _problem_ is that I'm a murderer and my _problem_ is that I think that that's who I am." Rose Waters let out a laugh, as if everyone had just said something hilarious. But the laugh gave everyone goosebumps. "My problem is that I truly believe that even if Thanos hadn't taken me in, even if I never had these powers, then I would still turn out to be the same person... A psychopathic murderer."

"Saying that your psychopathic is one of the signs that you aren't." Wanda spoke as Rose Waters simply shook her head.

"Rosie, if you had a normal family, you would've turned out just fine." Gamora replied and crossed her arms. "I had a normal mother, and I was turning out just fine until Thanos took me... How you are today isn't because of nature, it's because of your nurturer."

Rose Waters sat down on a nearby bench and took a sip of her water, her eyes blooming with tears which she quickly wiped away. A certain sense of weakness filled her body as Rose Waters chewed at her bottom lip before speaking.

"Is-"

And then, before anything else could have a chance of happening, an explosion went off and the nearby guard had a spear through his chest, Corvius Glaive and Proxima Midnight on the other side, both with a hauntingly evil smile spreading throughout their face.

"Sisters, it's been much too long."

* * *

 **Wha-Bam**

 **Do you think that who you are has to do more with your nurturer or by nature itself?**

 **~Emily**


	23. Chapter 23

*****Sorry in advanced for any speelling/GraMMar mistakes that may be found within da following chapter. I didn't really have time to edit it, but I really wanted to shoot this thing out!*****

 **The Choices We Make**

 _Rose Waters disposed of the bodies by dumping them into the coldness of space, all of them bagged up and wrapped so Rose Waters wouldn't have to know which one was Wind. She needed to get them out, not because their presence haunted her, but because they make the place smell absolutely horrible._

 _She then proceeded to spend the rest of her time scrubbing the floors of the ship, desperate to get the blood stains out. In her mind, she told herself that she was doing this so that she could be neat and tidy. That was she doing it because it would make Thanos proud._

 _But what would make Thanos even more proud was if she teleported to the planet and helped him on his quest of saving the dying world before them._

 _However, Rose Waters did no such thing. Instead, she simply scrubbed harder and harder until the floor's surface became reflective and her arms were finally tired._

 _And it was then when Rose Waters finally looked outside to see what was happening._

 _Thanos had arrived about five hours ago it seemed, and he was doing exceptionally well considering the fact that his ships were all stationed at the planet's major trading stations. It would be a quick liberation and would probably only take a week or so until they rounded up and killed half of the population... and it would be even faster if Rose Waters helped them._

 _But Rose Waters only sat on the ship, each day doing something different on the ship as if to show a reason onto why she wasn't helping Thanos. She colour-coordinated the clothes, made sure every button on the control panel was dust free, and even redesigned the entire ship, as if that could justify onto why she wasn't helping her creator, her lord. Her Father._

 _By the time three days had passed, Rose Waters came to the conclusion that she just... just couldn't go back to Thanos... not because she didn't believe in him anymore, but because he would just kill her for abandoning him for so long. The decision was made and it left Rose Waters a little hollow on the inside as the truth considered to unravel within her._

 _She was lying to herself. All this time, she's been lying to herself._

 _Wind's death had changed her in ways she couldn't even explain. It had made her feel... feel something raw, deep, and powerful. It tore her apart and made her bleed on the inside. It was so stupid... so, so stupid that Rose Waters could only blame her hormones. That once she didn't feel this... indescribable feeling of self-hatred was when she could come back... She would do more harm than good to Thanos' glorious army if she was full of these ugly feelings of compassion._

 _So Rose Waters flew to the one place that she knew she could even possibly be allowed into. The one place that she knew just might accept her... or at least where it was somewhat safe._

 _Asgard._

* * *

"Proxima, Glaive." Nebula hissed as Rose Waters took a step forward and grabbed Peter's hand, ready to teleport out of here. "Are you both really so insistant to die?"

"I could say the same to you." Proxima hissed before taking a step forward and began to throw her spear at Nebula, ready to kill her when Rose Waters blinked and with her other hand, held the spear before staring rather harshly at her siblings. "I knew you were a snake and weakling, Rose Waters." Proxima insulted as Rose Waters narrowed her eyes and jabbed the spear in the direction of Proxima, a hint of a smile on her face as it skimmed the skin of her.

"Who ever said I was weak?" She questioned before teleporting behind Proxima and kicking the back of her neck before letting out a chuckle. "I thought you already knew that I can always beat yo-"

Rose Waters was midway into talking when Corvius Glaive suddenly stabbed a needle into a major vein in Rose Waters' neck and suddenly, the power that once swerved inside of her body felt depleted as Rose Waters stumbled backwards, her legs quivering beneath her as she glanced at Proxima and Corvius, a little bit in panic as everyone else in the cell began fighting.

"No more teleporting tricks today." Proxima stated with a grin as she grabbed Peter Parker by the neck and threw him away as if he was nothing.

Rose Waters blinked once before taking in a deep breath, and laughing.

"You really think I need to teleport to kill you?"

And, without another word, Rose Waters stood up and took a dagger from her belt, her eyes in a murderous mood. She kicked at Proxima's shin and tried to slice at her neck, going in for the kill, but Proxima evaded that as Nebula and Gamora focused on taking down Glaive, all while Spider-Man attempted to aid Rose Waters in her fight.

Spider-webs slung over Proxima, which she quickly began to take off, but it did buy Rose Waters a bit of time to kick Proxima at the hip before striking her knife in her stomach right as Proxima reached over to stab Rose Waters with her spear. However, before she could do so, a sudden red energy prevented her from stabbing the girl and all eyes turned to Wanda, who, with a look of struggling determination, pushed the dagger deeper into Proxima's stomach all while holding her off. She was eventually pushed into the floor itself as Rose Waters took out her dagger and stomped on her chest, her eyes full of fury.

"Thanos is going to be so upset at you..." Proxima whispered softly as Rose Waters leaned her face down so that they were looking at eachother in the eye.

"Like I care." Rose Waters hissed before stabbing her sister in the throat in satisfaction right as Nebula and Gamora walked over, obviously done their part of the job.

"Get us out of here, Rose." Gamora hissed. "I knew I should've fought."

"Little problem, they took away my teleporting trick." Rose Waters replied simply as everyone calmly raised an eyebrow. "I don't know... Thanos must've found some sort of liquid that weakens my teleportation and... and anyway, it doesn't matter, it'll come back." Rose Waters nudged her head in the way of the exit.

"Come on, let's fight a war."

* * *

 _Rose Waters waltzed into the palace of Asgard with little resistance._

 _Of course, guards left and right ran up to her, ready to take her down, but she payed them all no attention and with a simply shove, push, and stab, they were out of her way. A simple nuisance, really._

 _"All-Father Odin." Rose Waters stated as she slammed open the golden doors to face a man with a long, white beard, who was seated in a rather... unkingly position of sitting sideways to face a wall rather than to the front. "I've come to see your son, Loki."_

 _"Ah, Rose Waters." The All-Father spoke and slowly turned to face Rose Waters before waving his hand at the guards who were rushing into the room. "Please, give the two of us a bit of time."_

 _At his words, the guards paused before shutting the doors, giving the two some privacy as Rose Waters' lips curved into a smile._

 _"King... suits you well, Loki."_

 _The moment his name slipped past her tongue, Loki shifted back to his original form and held his father's staff with both his hands, a smile placed on his lips as he slowly stood up and nodded in her direction._

 _"How did you know?"_

 _"Thanos keeps close tabs on his traitors." Rose Waters replied, her words making Loki ever so slightly flinch before brushing it off, pretending like her words didn't affect him._

 _"He's not with you." Loki whispered softly. "You landed here on a Nova Corps ship... my, little Rosie, have you gone rogue?"_

 _Rose Waters let out a deep laugh before casually removing a dagger from her belt and holding it close to her face, threats pouring out of her eyes. Suddenly, all sense of playfulness had abandoned her face and her eyes were laser-focused on Loki. "I told you not to call me that."_

 _"So you have!" Loki decifered as Rose Waters wrinkled her nose before speaking back._

 _"Where's your brother, Loki?" Rose Waters hissed. "Thor, was it? Should I alert him that someone seems to be impersonating the all mighty-"_

 _"What do you want, Rose Waters?" Loki snapped as a playful smile appeared on Rose's face, her dagger slipping back into her belt as she casually took a step towards the trickster._

 _"I haven't been feeling very well recently." Rose Waters whispered truthfully._

 _"Really? Has the feared Rose Waters caught the common cold?" Loki questioned as Rose Waters simply give him a death stare before continuing._

 _"Of course not, I've just been... been having this little voice in my head nagging at me for the past week or so." Rose Waters replied and took in a sharp breath._

 _"Oh, why, do enlighten me into what it's been telling you."_

 _"That I'm a horrible person."_

 _"You're finding this out just now?"_

 _At his words, Rose Waters blinked and appeared in front of Loki, her dagger lightly touching his throat as Loki simply held his hands up in surrender. "Watch yourself, trickster."_

 _"Well, you did ask for my help." Loki replied rather calmly. "... and if I'm not mistaken, then I would have to say that that's your little consciousness kicking in. Why, I do wonder where that's been for the past few years."_

 _"But it's just a phase." Rose Waters argued and took a step back. "I'm worried that if I try to help Thanos, I'll... hesitate." Rose Waters slowly turned her head towards Loki and for a brief moment, he could see fear in them. "And you know what Thanos does to you if you hesitate."_

 _"So you propose just hiding out here until you feel good and well?" Loki questioned and crossed his arms. "Rosie, that's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."_

 _"Well, I'm not trying to die!" Rose Waters shouted back as Loki cracked a smile._

 _"Since when was Rose Waters afraid of dying for a cause as great as," he let out an exaggerated sigh of happiness. "Thanos."_

 _"Since I've realized what it meant to kill." Rose Waters replied and immediately wished that she could take the words back, but Loki didn't seem to notice... or care._

 _"Little Rose, while I would love to help you, I simply can't." He crossed his arms, suddenly serious. "Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy your company, you're a... delight to be around, especially when you get all fired up... but what you need isn't someone like me." He looked at the ground and sucked in his cheeks. "I don't really think anyone needs me."_

 _"I don't need you." Rose Waters snapped. "I just... just need a place to clear my head." Rose Waters shook her head before pressing her palms against it."I... I... You don't understand, Loki, there's this thing clawing at my chest and I just need a bit of time to get rid of it... And then..."_

 _"Then you're going to start murdering half the universe as Thanos' right hand?" Loki filled in as Rose Waters looked up at him with a half open mouth._

 _"You make it sound so much more horrible than it actually is..."_

 _"No, I'm just not sugar-coating it." Loki snapped back. "Listen, Rose Waters, I'm not the cleanest person in the nine realms. I've played tricks, killed, and betrayed everyone who ever loved me... but even I can see how absolutely ridiculous and horrific Thanos' plan is." He paused for just a moment as Rose Waters stared at him with wide eyes._

 _Gone was the girl with fire burning behind the iciest blue eyes in the world. She has been replaced by someone with fear and doubt and... and was that guilt?_

 _"And guessing by the fact that you aren't even interrupting me, Rosie, you seem to agree with me."_

 _Rose Waters blinked once and squeezed her fists together before speaking once more. "I'm just asking for a place to recollect my thoughts."_

 _"And why do you think I would let you stay? You do realize that the half of the population that Thanos wants to kill also includes my people."_

 _"Because I'm asking you." Rose Waters snapped back. "I'm asking you right now and you haven't seemed to have killed me or even threaten me yet."_

 _"Rose Waters, you are confused." Loki whispered softly before placing a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch. "You won't find what you're looking for on Asgard, that's a given, and you won't find it from being alone."_

 _"I'm not scared." Rose Waters interrupted. "If you even dare think that I'm scared of doing what Thanos wants me to do, I'm not-"_

 _"I never even implied that you were scared, Rosie... but I do think that you need other people... others like you..."_

 _"My siblings?" Rose Waters questioned before wrinkling her forehead._

 _"No, no, no... people like_ you. _The humans."_

* * *

 **Only 12 more days until Endgame! I *might* be posting my own little one-shot theory onto what I think might happen on a different story, so stay tuned for that!**

 **Thanks for reading this far!**

 **~Emily**


	24. Chapter 24

**Sooo... it's been a while, but, let's just say life got pretty busy and now, out of literally nowhere, a huge abundance of spare time popped out from a certain void. I think it's safe to say that we all know what I'm talking about. Anyways, to help ease the boredom of society, I decided to start posting a little more on this story that, for some strange reason, I'm can't help but smile when I read it! Enjoy :P**

 **The BiFrost**

 _Rose Waters appeared on Terra, or Earth as they called it, with the help of Loki who easily managed to shoo those away who protected the BiFrost by being in his Odin-like form._

 _"I still can't believe that those idiots believe your little charade." Rose Waters stated with a laugh, to which Loki only rolled his eyes to before turning the sword that lied within the BiFrost, making it burst with light and glory._

 _"Rose Waters, it's been a pleasure." Loki stated and stuck out a hand to which Rose Waters simply slapped away, as Loki had trained her to do. "Though, I do suppose now is the correct time for parting gifts."_

 _Rose Waters opened her mouth to reply, mostly to say that she didn't want anything that Loki had to offer. He was probably to give her a ball of dead rats or something gross like that, but, to Rose Water's great surprise, what he revealed to her was grander than what Rose Waters could ever dream of._

 _She had never seen it in person before, and if she did, then she was too young to remember what it was like to be in the eyes of it's exotic power. It was beautiful, it's sides smooth and radiating with energy and life and... and Rose Waters could just feel it calling her name, begging her to touch it and hold it and become one with it like how it was with her all those years ago._

 _"The Tesseract." Rose Waters whispered, her hands instinctively touching the surface of the beautiful brilliant blue cube. The moment the words slid out of her mouth, Rose Waters looked up at Loki, her eyes narrowed. "How in the world is this in_ your _possession?"_

 _"Oh, Asgard has more trinkets than you could believe." Loki replied simply with before pressing the beautiful cube into her hands. At the feeling of being reunited with her creator, her God essentially, Rose Waters let out a powerful exhale and for the first time in her life, she felt an exhileration of power that felt like nothing she had ever witnessed before. She felt invinsible, a shooting star, a supernova. A beautiful beam of energy that was stronger than a billion men and faster than anyone who dared step in her past._

 _For the first time, she felt like she could rival even the power of Thanos himself._

 _"It's yours, Rose." Loki stated and gently patted her hand. "I suppose you would take better care of it than me after all, I mean, all it does is just gather up dust in my home."_

 _"Loki... It's..." Rose Waters didn't have words to describe how to felt to hold the cube. She simply didn't. But, after a milliemia, she finally tore her eyes away from it and looked up at Loki, her arms cradling the cube to her chest. "Why? You know yourself just how much power is held within it's walls."_

 _"And that's exactly why I need to get rid of it." Loki replied and arched an eyebrow. "Rosie, you took out some of my finest guards within mere minutes and, granted, while you are... a reasonably good sparrer." Rose Waters lightly punched him in the shoulder at his comment, but with the Tesseract amping up her power, it was a lot harsher than what she had initially thought. The Space Stone was intoxicating. "That does mean that someone with a little less mercy and skill could do the exact same deed."_

 _"Also, since there's no need for this item to be in my collection... it makes reasonable sense to grant it back to one of it's original owners. Besides, I think you're quite the better hider of objects than me, Rosie."_

 _"I'll... I'll guard it with my life." Rose Waters whispered softly as Loki patted her on the shoulder before he leaned in close so that his lips graced her ear lobe, making her shiver._

 _"Thanos will not touch that stone, understood Rose Waters?"_

 _Rose's face paled. She hadn't even thought about Thanos when the stone came into her possession and, for a moment, she thought about teleporting to his ship and presenting him with her precious space stone. That would win his favour for the rest of her years and he would praise her and adore her and love her and..._

 _And trillions more Wind's would die at his hands. At her hands._

 _And that thought alone was more than enough for Rose Waters to nod her head, her very first true rebellious action towards the man who practically created her._

 _"Good."_

 _And in true, Loki fashion, he pushed her into the portal, casually waving at her as she fell in, her hands grabbing at the Tesseract as if it was her lifeline, giving the solemn promise of never letting go._

* * *

The very moment Rose Waters stepped onto the battle field, her heart immediately sank to the bottom of her chest at the mere level of destruction that had wrecked the once beautiful fair lands of Wakanda. Beings from both sides were heavily bruised, broken, or dead and it was hard to tell who was winning overall.

But none of that held a candle to the giant, purple being that was making his way towards a certain man with a red cape, this time more determined than ever to take back what he thought was only rightfully his.

"We need to stop Thanos." Nebula immediately stated, which Gamora nodded to and the two ladies among with Scarlet Witch began to run towards the beast as Rose Waters only stood rooted in her same spot, her legs shaking the more she looked at Thanos and how he, her guardian, her saviour, her father, had to get his hands dirty by brushing away pesky Avengers who tried to attack him.

She felt like she was betraying everything she ever stood for. She felt like she was betraying herself but just standing there and not helping her master, much less attacking him. She didn't think that she could throw a single punch in his direction without throwing up or apologizing a million times over. She couldn't.

Or maybe it was just that liquid Proxima shot in her talking.

"Rose, watch out!" Peter Parker shouted before pushing Rose out of the way of a few tons of debris that was falling off of a large structure. She roughly hit the ground, Spiderman's face just inches from her own but she wasn't seeing him. She was seeing Thanos and hearing his voice in her ear that she was going to come out of this better and stronger than ever before because she was _Rose Waters._

"Are you alright?!" Peter shouted as Rose let out a cry, tears falling from her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to teleport to another planet and live out the rest of her sad, grey days on an isolated planet, starved of food, love, or attention. But she couldn't even do that, her teleportation not even allowing her to get out of Parker's arms much less to another solar system.

"I can't do this." Rose whispered softly and let out a cry. "I can't do this, Peter, I can't, I can't."

"You don't have to do anything." Peter replied and gently picked her up. Even after all of the crimes she committed, even after she stabbed the wizard and, alledgely, killed millions, Peter couldn't help but feel like she was nothing more than a confused soul who was trying her very hardest to do right in the world. That, when it really came down to it, she would put her life on the line for what she truly believed in.

With a sling of a web, and fragile Rose in Peter's arms, they managed to get to the balcony of the main building when Peter Parker put Rose Waters down and slid on his mask.

"Wait, don't go!" Rose Waters screamed and grabbed Peter's arm, her eyes wide. Maybe it was the temperature or because she had the same liquid that she had in her body when she last saw _him_ but for a brief moment, Rose Waters thought that Peter Parker was Kevin Windack.

It had been so long since Rose Waters had last allowed herself to think that name, so long because she knew that the man was haunting her despite the fact that his body was floating lifelessly in the depths of endless space. He was everything she went, in her head and in her dreams and in her very soul and now, he was in front of her in the form of Peter Parker.

For a brief moment of time, Rose Waters was back in a Novas Corp ship, looming over a (mostly) innocent man. No, a friend. A friend who she had killed in her fury.

"He's going to kill you." Rose Waters whispered, her hands shaking as tears leaked past her eyes. It wasn't a statement, it was a fact and Rose Waters knew it.

She had only sparred with Thanos once in the past, despite all of her years of being his pupil. In that fight, Thanos had purposely played with her mind to make her think, cruelly, that she was going to win. He let her land her best moves on him, and, at one point, Rose Waters could've sworn that his knees buckled when she kicked him.

But then everything fell apart when Thanos got bored.

Within a second, the tables turned so quickly that Rose Waters had her puny, human head inside Thanos' fist, where he was squeezing so tightly that Rose Waters couldn't even concentrate hard enough to teleport. She couldn't breathe, see, or even think anything besides the fact that she had failed her master. That she would never be good enough to serve under his hand. That he deserved someone stronger, smarter, _better_ than Rose Waters.

She had genuinely thought that he was going to murder her and she was close, but, alas, their little match only gave her a month in an Intensive Care Unit. According to Gamora, Thanos had suffocated her for so long that her brain stopped functioning. When she woke up, she didn't remember her name, who she was, where she was, or even that she could teleport.

But she remembered Thanos. She remembered to bow to him and call him Father and beg for his forgiveness, despite not knowing how nor why he was important.

She forgot everything but Thanos because he was all she knew.

"He's will kill you." Rose Waters repeated herself before she grabbed Peter Parker's arm even harder.

"I know." Peter responded as Rose Waters only shook her head.

"No, no you don't know!" Rose Waters felt overpowered with emotions, even blade of her being crumbling apart. "This isn't some... some petty New York criminal, Peter, he will not hesitate to tear you limb from limb and... and he has the Power stone, he won't have any mercy, he won't even think-"

"Rose," Peter replied, his voice dead serious. " _I know._ But this is my job, Rose Waters. This is what I swore myself to do the moment I donned this suit."

"It... That doesn't mean anything! Promises and the works, they don't mean anything Peter when there's nothing to bound you to them! My powers... In just... just thirty minutes they'll come back full speed." I blinked and could feel myself blink in and out of reality, moving just a centimeter away from where I formally was, though, it did take all the energy in me to do that alone. "And we can get out of here. I know planets that Thanos doesn't, planets that I'm sure he'll find but then we'll just go away again, Peter, we don't _need_ to be here-"

"Maybe you don't, but I do." Peter replied and before Rose Waters could argue more, Peter snatched his arm away from her and swung away towards the mad man that went by the name of Thanos.

* * *

 **How do you guys think I got Peter's character? I personally think I did pretty well, but then again, I haven't watched one of his movies in forever, so I literally have nothing to compare it to.**

 **Thank you so much for your continuous support!**

 **~Emily :)**


	25. Chapter 25

**Peter**

As Peter Parker swung away towards his doom that held the embodiment of the Mad Titan, Rose Waters could do nothing but stare at the pure idiocy of the boy. What gave him the right to even think that he held a chance against the purple giant? Why was he even trying when the cruel reality was that all he was doing was marching towards his doom? Why was he being so, clearly stupid?

 _Because he's a hero, Rose, that's what heroes do._

At the thought, Rose Waters immediately shook her head, determined not to believe it. A hero should understand when a fight can't be won and should save their energy for another day. A hero should be smart and selfless and brave and strong and... and...

Rose Waters lost her train of thought as she saw Gamora slashing Thanos in the knee, only for him to grab her by her red tinted locks before hurling her towards a tree. Then, without hesitation, he grabbed Nebula and began to literally tear her body apart when Scarlet Witch held his hands back as Iron Man landed a single punch against his back. At the realization at how outnumbered the Mad Titan was, he immediately slammed the ground with his gauntlet, hurling everyone backwards at least a hundred meters right when SpiderMan came swinging in, landing a single blow of his webbing on Thanos' gauntlet when he simply grabbed his head and hurled the self-proclaimed hero across a field before he made his way closer to Doctor Strange, who took his fighting stance.

Being the coward she was, Rose Waters tore her eyes away from the battle field and let out a sob. Her feelings were contradicting one another, on one hand, she desperately wanted to help the Avengers but on the other, betraying Thanos felt wrong on a million different levels. She felt like she was having an identity crisis, like her world was falling apart at its seams.

Someone let out a scream, forcing Rose Waters to look back to the field to see Thanos grabbing the wizards' necklace before releasing it, his hand seared with it's prints. At his downfall, Captain America hit him in the knee with his shield, forcing the Titan to buckle it when Peter Quill hit him in the back with his gun, forcing him to fall. Within seconds, Black Widow had sent a fury of jabs at his jaw and Black Panther had hurled a boatload of vibranium his way, forcing his other knee to fall as Doctor Strange forced a portal to open above his head, letting Mantis fall through and for her hands to clutch his sleep before screaming at him to sleep.

At the words, The Mad Titan's eyes turned hazy as Gamora ran up to Thanos' face and yelled something almost inaudible to Rose as a small team of Avengers began to start yanking his glove off with another set was holding him down at all angles.

Everything was happening so quickly that it made Rose Waters feel light headed at the sight of her Master being taken down by nothing more than... than mortals. Than humans. It felt impossible to believe with her bare eyes that she couldn't even comprehend the fact. She couldn't comprehend anything as every single moment with her savior flashed before her eyes.

Picking her up, throwing her down, begging, so, so desperately for his affection and love. On her knees for him, and only him, because he was the only thing that she loved. He was the only thing she had. He destroyed her and made her into the lady standing on a building, like a coward, doing nothing more than watching the entire scene unfold before her when the Black Dwarf rammed through the crowd of people, his large, bulky build more than enough to shake Mantis off of him and wreak havoc upon the entire team as Thanos snapped his glove back and gave the world the nastiest glare that Rose Waters had ever witnessed.

And she witnessed a lot.

Without another word being said, The Mad Titan let out a scream and punched the ground with his gauntlet, forcing the Earth to break apart as Rose Waters' eyes widened. The Power Stone did hold the power to destroy planets but... but that wasn't how Thanos did things. He left the resources to survive, he only killed the people for a better life not... not destroy worlds. That was Galactus' territory.

With frantic footsteps, almost everyone started to run away from the giant crater that Thanos was creating in his fury. Almost everyone but the Avengers of course, who only foolishly launched at him at full speed only to be turned into mere, abstract shapes with the help of the reality stone.

Rose Waters stumbled backwards and, in a moment of pure desperation, tried to will herself to teleport to her base on that asteroid near Mars. But she wasn't able to and only managed to get across the room against a wall, the amount of energy she threw into that alone already enough to make her light headed. She couldn't do it, no matter how hard she tried, it was hopeless and now she was going to die on her home planet as it exploded into bits. How fitting.

However, the crater didn't eat up all the land, only everything within a three kilometer radius. Within seconds, the once beautiful, lush green landscape had turned into ash as Thanos walked up a puddle of red mud and, with a wave of his hand, revealed Doctor Strange who immediately spit up blood. Despite the fact that he had turned into liquid during Thanos' rage, he was still horribly hurt.

"The stone." Thanos said, his voice small and barely audible as Doctor Strange only shook his head.

"Never." He replied, his response only infuriating the Mad Titan.

"THE STONE!" He yelled again, this time loud enough for even Rose Waters to hear as she scrambled to the edge of the balcony as Thanos waved a hand to reveal a pile of blocks to turn into nobody other than Peter Parker. And then, the purple giant spoke once more. "The Stone and he might just live."

At the words, Rose Waters heartbeat spiked as she let out a cry when Thanos clenched his fist, letting all of the broken Avengers come back to life, Tony Stark being the first to talk. But even he was broken, his voice hoarse and empty.

"Do it, Strange." Tony Stark whispered, his voice desperate as Thanos only clenched his fist, forcing Peter Parker to scream. "I SAID DO IT, STRANGE! PLEASE!" Tony Stark screamed as Rose Waters let out a gasp of air, tears streaming down her face as she desperately shook her head over and over again.

No. No. No. No. Why was it happening all over again? Rose Waters wondered as she grabbed her hair and let out a scream. She could see Wind yelling at her, calling her a monster and for a moment, Rose Waters couldn't differ memories from reality. For a minute, she couldn't even breathe.

And Dr. Strange wasn't even saying a word, his eyes clenched shut as Peter's screams and Tony's beggings only grew louder and louder as Captain America tried to take a punch at the Titan, only to be easily pushed away by Black Dwarf, who narrowed his eyes at the soldier and growled, waiting for someone else to try to attack his leader. His father.

And at that, Rose Waters broke down and, summoning every last droplet of energy left inside of her, she forced herself to teleport towards Thanos. But even that wasn't enough to bring her all the way there, her body crumbling down barely a kilometer away from him in the midst of the wasteland that used to be gorgeous grass. Outside of the ash, fighting was still going on, a few Avengers and Wakandans still trying to hold off the incoming intruders.

But even the sound of theirs war cries didn't mask Peter's screams, which was all Rose Waters could hear. It was all she could feel.

That, and Wind's.

"No." Rose Waters whispered, her eyes wide and full of desperation as she covered her ears, but even if she teleported herself worlds upon worlds away, Rose Waters knew that she would never stop hearing his screams. "Not again." Her voice was fragile, broken. Haunted.

With weak, trembling legs, Rose Waters forced herself to get up and stumbled towards Thanos, forcing every fiber of her being to keep moving forward even though her self-preservation skills were begging her otherwise. The liquid that Proxima Midnight had shot in her was still very present in her body and Rose's perfect vision felt blurry as she used the last bits of strength in her to let out a scream.

"STOP!" But even with all of strength, she still fell down onto her knees, completely out of breath and her head spinning, and, miraculously, Peter's screams did stop.

Which only caused pure panic to fill Rose's heart as she looked up, fearing the worst only to be ultimately relieved to see Peter's trembling chest and his hand pressing against his chest, his eyes wide as they stared at her, his mouth whispering 'no'.

"Rose." A deep, cruel voice hissed as Rose Waters struggled to get up, her hands grabbing at the ground and her blood dribbling down her chin from smacking it against the ground earlier. It was the voice that Rose Waters was all too familiar with, a voice that haunted her into her misery. "Waters."

And then, purely out of instinct, Rose Waters brought her head up and looked at Thanos in the eye, her knees scrapping the ground in such a way that made one think that she was bowing to him, begging for his forgiveness. The thought actually did dance around her mind, but she shook her head.

 _A coward. A coward... I will not be a coward today._

"Thanos." Rose Waters replied, and, wobbly, she brought herself to her feet and held her head up high, her eyes gleaming with tears.

"I'm happy you stayed." Thanos whispered softly before he took another step her way, his fist clenched as everyone who used to be standing was forced to their knees but him and his daughter. "It would take ever so long to hunt you down."

Rose Waters didn't say a single word in response, and, instead, she just stared at him with her large, incredibly blue eyes as he continued.

"You're not running away, I'm frankly surprised." Thanos whispered as he took another step towards his daughter, causing her to jolt in her spot, but she did not fall. "Or maybe it's just because of that little gift that Proxima sent you."

Rose Waters raised her head at the Mad Titan and slowly lowered it as he went on one knee to truly look at her in the eye, his face full of nothing but cruelty and sadistic madness. "I'm afraid of you." Rose Waters whispered and sucked in a deep breath, her voice trembling. "I've been afraid of you my entire life."

"At least you're truthful." Thanos muttered back in reply as Rose Waters took a sharp breath and continued.

"I... I don't want to kill you."

"It's arrogant for you to think you can." Thanos paused and raised his hand to ever so gently stroke her smooth cheek. His fingers were rough and full of callouses against her face that it felt like he was scrapping her skin off. "Rose Waters, did I ever tell you that you were always my favorite child?"

Rose Waters had dreamed of the day when Thanos would whisper those words to her. She dreamt it and imagined it and desperately wanted it. She needed his approval, fought for it, would kill for it, which maybe wasn't saying that much. But she needed it regardless.

She had waited for those words to grace his lips her entire life, yet, when it finally happened it all felt... underwhelming.

"The past doesn't bother me, daughter." Thanos continued before he pressed his gloved fist against the ground, forcing Tony Stark to fall face first into the ground, who was trying to sneak attack him. "I can forgive and forget, especially for you." He paused as Rose Waters started to cry, tears dribbling from her eyes. This was all she wanted, this was all she needed but she felt so wrong to accept it or reject it. She couldn't win, her moral compass and loyalty wouldn't let her.

"You're still young, you can still learn to find yourself with me. I can help you, lead you, and together we can craft a good life for us. A peaceful life without any of this." He paused and wiped a tear that was streaking its way down Rose's face, his rough hands causing her skin to turn bright red at the touch.

"But... I'm going to need your absolute loyalty. No more lies. No more hesitations."

Rose Waters opened her mouth to respond, despite not even knowing which response she would even choose to that. However, before she could, Thanos continued.

"And one more thing: I'm going to need the Space Stone."

* * *

 **I know, I know, it's getting pretty intense!**

 **I, honestly, really have no clue what kind of ending this story is going to have (I'm making a lot of this up as I go lol), though I do have a good feeling onto what to do. However, if you guys want to pitch in with what you think is the most 'Rose Waters' thing to do, please, please, please leave your suggestion in the reviews! I'm definitely taking all opinions into consideration (though, who knows... I might just do the opposite, muhahaha).**

 **TLDR: What choice do you guys think Rose is going to make?**

 **Stay safe!**

 **~Emily :)**


	26. Chapter 26

**Earth**

 _It was a SHIELD agent who happened to be the first human who stumbled upon Rose Waters._

 _She had emerged from one of the thick forests that occupied South America, her eyes wild and full of a deep lust for power. She was dressed in the same rags that she had worn to her solo mission, which was practically falling apart at the seams. Her hair was wild and messy, full of brilliant blond clumps, dirt and sticks. The Tesseract wasn't in her hands but, instead, hidden on the remains of a planet that Rose Waters had stumbled upon years ago. A planet that was long ago destroyed by Galactus himself._

 _The only thing that was still Rose Waters about Rose Waters was her highlighter blue eyes, which lit so brightly that it seemed like they would glow in the dark. To the SHIELD agent, it looked as if she had spent the past four years living in the forest as opposed to two hours._

 _"Are you alright?" The SHIELD agent questioned. He had been stationed there to patrol the area and protect scientists who had detected some radioactive activity that had happened earlier that morning. The man had rushed up to Rose Waters, his gun laid heavily in his hands as Rose Waters only rolled her eyes and continued her way down the path. Even the humans on Earth were boring._

 _"Excuse me, Miss." The SHIELD agent then grabbed Rose Waters' arm to allow her to shoot him the dirtiest look in the world. She looked lethal, dangerous, but her sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes showed that she was still nothing more than a girl. A teenager at the most. "But you really shouldn't be here."_

 _"Yeah, I shouldn't." Rose Waters hissed back before she snapped her arm away from him. "Touch me one more time and I'll kill you."_

 _"I'm sorry, Miss, but the last time thing kind of thing happened, a God literally fell from the sky." He replied as Rose Waters continued to walk away. "So I'm required to interview everyone and anyone who enters or leaves this area." But his words only fell on deaf ears as Rose Waters continued to make her way towards wherever the hell she wanted to go._

 _Which forced the SHIELD agent to make the greatest mistake of his life by grabbing the girl's arm once more._

 _Before he had the chance to breathe, a dagger had punctured his bullet-proof vest and had made home in his chest, right into his heart as Rose Waters easily pulled out the dagger and allowed him to fall to the ground before a bullet grazed her arm from a nearby, scared SHIELD agent. With gritted teeth, Rose Waters teleported behind the man and stabbed him before continuing her massacre onto anyone else who dared come into her way._

 _By the time she was done, she had successfully taken down a total of 22 agents, all of whom now lay dead on the floor, each one not having the slightest of ideas onto how in the world a mere girl had managed to move places so quickly. Rose Waters could tell that more were surly to come, judging from the blaring radios that rang from their body suits, so she quickly raided each soldier of their food rations and disappeared back into the forest._

 _She didn't blame herself for her small massacre. After all, the man shouldn't have provoked her to begin with._

* * *

 _Rose Waters had traveled for barely a day when she finally reached a big city. She had fully eaten all food rations that she had stolen from the fallen SHIELD agents and was starving for something new, which she found in the appearance of a food cart._

 _A man said something to her in a foreign language before he spotted the dried blood that still lied on the girl's hands and clothes and ran away, leaving her to help herself with the delicious food that occupied his cart along with the money that lay in a locked metal box, which she easily store with a jab of her fist only for her to encounter a few cops... who obviously stood no chance against her._

 _After the murder of the police officers, Rose Waters ran into an alleyway and teleported herself to the top of a building before she let out a deep cry from the back of her throat. She knew that what she was doing was bad, wrong even by Thanos' standards. He didn't raise a robber. He raised a strong, independent, fierce young lady who was suppose to stand by his side no matter what. A murderer, but not a robber._

 _The top of the building held some laundry that flapped in the wind, so Rose Waters stripped of her torn, blood stained outfit and dressed inside baggy jeans five sizes too big and a strangely small black shirt that still hung off of weird places on her body. She then teleported away to another rooftop when the sound of police sirens flooded her ears._

* * *

 _It took Rose Waters a solid week before she caught word of a man named Tony Stark._

 _He had arrived on the news because he was discussing some charities that he was going to be donating to and she had spotted him from the strange TV screens that hid behind mere glass. For the past few days, she had been sleeping in the streets, eating what she could and not speaking a word. The sight of Tony Stark caught her eye because... because she had remembered him._

 _He was the man who helped defeat Loki and the Chitauri. He was the man who could encase himself in a box of armor. He was Iron Man._

 _And... and if he could do that then maybe he might just stand a chance against Thanos._

 _For a brief moment, a spark of duty appeared in Rose Water's heart. She had to warn him, she just had to. She needed to._

 _She had caused so much harm in her life. She had destroyed so many homes, killed so many worlds, took away so many lives that she owed it to this planet to spread at least some... some awareness._

 _She had to. All she did when she came to Earth was kill._

 _She needed, just for once in her life, to save._

* * *

 _It only took Rose Waters a day to arrive to New York City, where she easily blended in among the masses of other homeless teens who aimlessly wandered the streets._

 _She wandered around for the signature Stark Industries Tower when she had stumbled upon someone else who was just as super, but not quite the same person she was searching for._

 _"Watch out!" A loud voice boomed before she was immediately swung off her feet and put to another piece of the ground as a giant brick wall where she used to be walking by collapsed. She was 'saved' by someone in a red and blue costume who immediately swung away, his eyes looking for bigger fish to fry. Like the criminals who were currently robbing the bank._

 _"I can save myself!" Rose Waters shouted, her hands clenched, but her words were only ignored as Spider-Man took down a few men who were leaving the bank with bags of cash in their hands. At his obliviousness to her comment, Rose Waters narrowed her eyes. She was the daughter of Thanos, she was listened to. She was feared._

 _The last person to ignore her was decapitated shortly after and she wouldn't take that kind of disrespect from some stupid boy in a spider costume._

 _"Excuse me!" Rose Waters screamed when she spotted a man who was fleeing into a large white van with a bag of cash in his hand. Before she even had another thought, she threw a dagger into one of the wheels, and teleported it back into her hand as she continued to make her way towards the strangely dressed boy who widened his eyes at the girl stalking towards him and danger that surrounded her. The ten guys who were robbing the bank were all armed and wouldn't hesitate to take her hostage, how in the world was he going to get out of this one-_

 _Without another word stated, Rose Waters grabbed a man by the collar and punched him in the head so that he immediately fell before she got to work on everyone else, but never once did she break eye contact with Peter Parker who struggled to continue to make work of everyone else, who she easily helped take down. However, right as Rose Waters opened her mouth to give the boy a talking to, Spiderman noticed that the van, despite it's broken tire, was beginning to take off and began to sling after it when Rose Waters grabbed his wrist and threw another dagger to the other tire, forcing it to fall apart and crash into a nearby lamppost._

 _"What the-" Spiderman stated as Rose Waters took a step towards him._

 _"I don't need saving." Rose Waters hissed._

 _She didn't know why she hated it so much that the boy had helped her, but she could only assume that it was because Thanos would've had her head if he knew that... that she needed help. Especially from a human._

 _"Well that's obvious." SpiderMan replied before he swung away._

 _Rose Waters thought about breaking his little string just to toy with his mind, but, at the last second, decided against it._

 _She had already caused enough pain today, judging by the ten men sprawling on the ground in pain._

* * *

 _After another week, Rose Waters found herself standing a good three miles from the Avengers compound, close enough that her eagle eye vision could easily make out the front door that she could teleport herself to. Close enough that she could even see Tony Stark hovering near a window making what seemed like an important phone call or something. This wasn't her first time near the compound, in fact, she's been encircling the building for the past week, thinking time after time again to tell Iron Man the situation he would soon find himself in._

 _She would replay the moment again and again inside of her head, each time always going to the worst case scenario: That Iron Man just wouldn't believe her and would lock her in jail the moment that he would realize the amount of lives she took in her short period of time on Earth._

 _Rose Waters' didn't know why she always thought about the worst kind of situation happening, though, she could only imagine that it was because she desperately wanted a reason to not walk up to the billionaire and voice her story. That she wanted to find any reason, no matter how small, to not blurt out the trouble that the man was soon going to face._

 _But each and every time she tried to do such a thing, the only thought that would echo in her mind that by going to him, at least that would clear her consciousness. That that meant she would've tried to stop a multi-trillion-upon trillion-person massacre. That she at least tried to stop Thanos._

 _That day, Rose Waters finally made up her mind: She was going to tell Tony Stark about Thanos, even if it would kill her._

 _But the moment she took a step towards the building, she almost fell to her knees at a voice that attacked her mind._

 _"Rose Waters, what do you think you're doing?"_

 _Rose Waters' entire body began to shaky violently as her eyes slowly moved to connect to those of Thanos, who leaned casually against a tree as if his every action wasn't ripping Rose Waters apart. As if his very presence wasn't burning her to the core. As if he wasn't killing with with every second he stared at his child._

 _"Yo-You found me." Rose Waters whispered and immediately sunk to the ground, her knees brought up to her face. Suddenly, she was no longer Rose Waters. Suddenly, her pride, her strength, her arrogance, were all stripped away from her leaving Rose Waters as nothing more than the mere mortal, human girl that she arrived in. Thanos had taken that all away without even striking a punch. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Father, please-"_

 _"Rose Waters, I asked you a question, what are you doing?"_

 _"I-I wanted to trick him!" Tears flooded Rose's eyes as she let out a hacking sob. She didn't just feel scared, she felt like a genuinely horrible person for betraying someone she held so dear to her heart. She felt like a monster. "Please, Thanos, please believe me, I know he has the Mind stone and I-"_

 _"I." He paused and stood straight up as Rose Waters looked up at him through the thick river of tears that flooded her eyes._

 _"Didn't."_

 _Rose couldn't breathe._

 _"Raise."_

 _Rose Waters covered her ears and rocked back and forth, her eyes not daring to blink._

 _"A"_

 _Rose Waters finally screamed._

 _"Liar."_

 _"I'm sorry, I'm sorry my Lord!" Rose Waters screamed and crawled to Thanos' feet, her face scrunched in pure pain at the deed she was about to commit. She was going to betray him,_ him. _Her Lord, her savior, her everything. Thanos was everything because Rose Waters could never live a life without him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."_

 _She whispered those words hundreds of times over, her eyes shut as tightly as a safe until her voice became hoarse and unrecognizable. She whispered those words until her mind forgot who she was, what she was doing, and where she was. Until all her mind knew was of guilt, pure and utter guilt for Thanos._

 _Several hours later, Rose Waters snapped awake, seeming to have grown unconscious after all of the mumbling. Half of her face was smeared with dirt and tears and the other half was red and blotchy. She looked around for any sign of Thanos but quickly ran upon the realization that he was never there._

 _Thanos was never on Earth. Her mind crafted him. He was a figment of her imagination._

 _She was safe to tell Tony Stark everything._

 _But he was still painted so vividly in her mind. If he could control her without even meaning to, then... then he would murder her the moment that she tried to actually tell Stark... and he was still her everything._

 _She didn't want to disappoint him. She never did._

* * *

 **Happy Good Friday everyone!**

 **Hope you guys liked this chapter, and don't worry, the 'present' timeline will continue next chapter lol!**

 **I would love to know your guys' thoughts on Thanos and Rose Water's relationship! I tried to make it as realistic as one probably would be and I used a lot of inspiration from Gamora to craft it. *small spoiler* but when Gamora 'stabbed' Thanos in the weird reality thing he made and when she started crying... well, that was really what gave me this whole idea for Rose Waters.**

 **Anyways, thanks as always for reading this far!**

 **~Emily :)**


	27. Chapter 27

**Thanos**

Rose Waters almost fainted at Thanos' words.

A... life with him? A life where she would finally be with the one that she's adored all her life, a life where she could finally feel as normal as she could ever be with a loving father and all the peace in the world? She felt dizzy at the impossible thought and the only thing keeping her head up was Thano's rough hand on her cheek.

She dreamed of this moment, wanted it ever since she was a little girl - and she wanted it.

Or perhaps, she just needed to be _wanted._ Maybe not by Thanos, but just by someone who could find a shred of worth in her.

"I know you have the stone, Rose Waters, I've known ever since you came back to me." He paused and Rose Waters could feel her inner voice wanted to scream for his forgiveness. She could feel her hands shaking and her heart breaking, but never once did she lose eye contact with the Mad Titan. "You just had a brighter gleam to your eyes. A beautiful sheerness to them that only a stone could provide."

Thanos paused and stared right into Rose Water's incredibly blue orbs. They were the exact shade of brilliant blue as the Space Stone and that made him feel hopeful for the world he could create. "But I had always assumed that with time, you would reveal that to me yourself. After all, you had been stuck with humans for so long that their selfish ways might've rubbed off of you."

Rose Water's lips trembled as she finally broke eye contact from her Father, doubt casting over her eyes. She loved him, that much was true. Loved him so much that she would do anything to gain his approval, his appreciation. His love. And now he was handing it all into her arms but it was so much so quickly that Rose Waters couldn't help but feel like he was exaggerating. That all he was doing was manipulating her to pass the Tesseract into his large, calloused hands.

Her eyes flickered over his shoulder and she connected eyes to Peter Parker, who was still struggling to get up after the blast of the Power Stone. He looked like he was in pain and misery and... and Rose Waters could feel her heart break for the boy. She didn't want him to hurt, that was never her intention. She... She didn't know what she wanted.

Almost as if he sensed the second thoughts rumbling through Rose's mind, Thanos gently tilted her head so that she looked back to him and spoke.

"Rosie,"

Never before did Thanos ever call Rose Waters 'Rosie'. It was always Rose Waters or, at the very most, Rose. But never, ever Rosie because that implied that there was a stronger connection beneath their relationship. That was why Rose Waters had hated it so much whenever Loki messed with her and whispered the name into her ear. She thought that it was something that could only be shared with two souls that were bounded so closely together that there was no telling where one began and one ended.

"I don't want to hurt you."

Rose Waters opened her mouth, not really knowing what exactly she wanted to say just that she wanted to _say_ something. She desperately wanted to, she needed to.

But before she had the chance, Rose Waters heard a battle cry in the distance. A battle cry that only meant war and... and horrifying destruction to come. A battle cry that was coming closer and closer and closer-

And Rose Waters didn't think when she looked at Thanos and flicked her fingers, forcing the Mad Titan to teleport a good fifty meters away, the most Rose Waters could do without throwing up when a sword struck deep into Rose Water's body - A sword that was meant for Thanos.

The sword was no Stormbreaker, but it certainly was something with it's large, bulky build that was the width of most people's opened hands and the thickness of a thumbs. Also, it especially didn't help that it was wielded by Thor himself, who stared wide eyed at Rose Waters. She let out a desperate breath of air, blood choking out of her body when her eyes rolled to back of her head and she fell backwards, breathing in and out heavily as her heart desperately tried to hold her on. She could only faintly felt Thor's hand on the back of her head and could barely hear the words that rolled off his tongue.

"Why did you do that?" He whispered harshly, not a bit of remorse slipping from his lips. He had meant to attack Thanos, to puncture his back and force him to fall. Not hurt his brother's friend, not the ever so famous Rose Waters who Loki had promised a million years ago was on his side...

But apparently, something had changed.

Rose Waters couldn't even answer his question, not just because she genuinely couldn't breathe, but also because she had no idea how to answer to that. She didn't know why she did that, she just did.

So, instead, she let out one last heavy breath as Thanos went absolutely ballistic on the world.

Within moments, Thor fell apart like putty, the reality stone already being put to work as the world around them began to collaspe, sending everyone from Thano's army to the Avengers themselves to fall apart like goo as Thanos lightly picked up Rose Waters, who still had the sword stuck in her, her mouth wide open, not a breathe passing her lips.

"No..." Thanos whispered before he yanked out the sword and, with a simple beam of light from above, he and his daughter was sent back to his spaceship with barely anything more than what he had left.

* * *

 _Rose Waters had enrolled herself in high school._

 _She was in a weird spot of her life where she couldn't bear the idea of betraying Thanos, but at the same time knew that she would fall apart if she helped him one more time. So, she decided to just do nothing and live the life that she was going to with Wind._

 _It was easy to forge her identity as a high school student as opposed to an intergalactic murderer, all she had to do was go to a few shady souls and trade in some money that she might've stolen out of people's purses when she watched them at banks or grocery stores. She even got her own place by pawning off jewerlry she teleported off of people's necks and wrists. The person who rented her the apartment didn't seem to care that she was, alledgely, seventeen, he rented it her anyway on the solemn promise that she wouldn't have any outrageous parties._

 _And then she went to high school._

 _To say that the entire experience was weird would be an understatement, the idea of sitting down and not sparring was just crazy for Rose Waters to imagine. She expected to come into the school essentially invisible, after all, shouldn't she just blend in with the rest of the humans? But everywhere she went, boys and girls alike followed her._

 _It took a while, but eventually Rose Waters realized that even on her homeworld, she was still different. Her body was too tall and her skin was too fair and her hair was too blond and she looked like she could, and would, knock you unconscious the moment you pissed her off, but at the same time, her eyes seemed wise and too old and her voice spoke of theories and stories like nobody else's business. It also helped that most people found her to be attractive, something that came from years of using her feminine charm on missions._

 _And with a name like Rose Waters, how couldn't she stand out._

 _However, it wasn't any of the boys and girls who flocked to her that caught her attention. No, instead, that took the form of a boy with brown hair and eyes who looked entirely too smart to be in high school. Who sat in the back of the class and only talked to a select few people._

 _Who continuously spent all of his time staring at her but never once approached._

 _Also, it helped that he was Spiderman._

 _Rose Waters figured out his 'secret-identity' pretty easily. She had pretty much stalked every person in the entire school just to make sure none of them were agents of Thanos or the Nova Corps. Peter Parker was the only person that ended up be extraordinary (though, she did admit that a few grade nines were a little sketchy), but even that kind of extraordinary didn't really matter to her._

 _He still stood no chance against her._

* * *

When Rose Waters awoke, a harsh headache was pressing into her skull and her eyelids felt as if they were weighed a million pounds as she struggled to try to see her surroundings. Her body felt like it was made out of mush and every time she tried to move, an intense wave of pain washed over her body.

When Rose Waters finally managed to open her eyes, she almost immediately shut them. An intense light enclosed her view, blinding her the moment her pupils made contact with it. She let out a low groan and sucked in a deep breath, but a ray of pain attacked her stomach when she breathed, which only made her want to breathe harder, causing the cycle to repeat all over again.

"There, there." A robotic voice stated as Rose Waters forced herself to peel her eyes open to come face to face with one of Thanos' drones. His cold metal hand was placed on her forehead, which he casually patted up and down. Rose Waters could only assume that it was done to calm her, but all it did was spike her heart rate as she darted her eyes towards a nearby spot near her and, with all the willpower left in her body, forced her body to teleport.

And she did, but not without a cost.

A pain unlike any other slammed throughout her entire body, forcing the girl to her knees as she widened her eyes at the drone, her hands pressing against the cold ground and her feet vibrating at the feeling of the ground. She felt weak, helpless, and she knew for a fact that that wasn't a good thing.

"Whe-Where am I?" Rose Waters questioned and slowly got to her feet. For some reason, she felt authoritive, so she acted that way. "What happened? Tell me _right_ now."

"Thanos' ship. You got impaled by a sword." The voice responded as Rose Waters sucked in deep breathe and, with fluttering fingers, lightly touched her stomach, feeling scar tissue. But when her fingers skimmed over it, a sense of unnerving pain raked throughout her body, forcing her hand to move away.

"The sword went straight through you, shattering your spine, stomach, small and large intestine, kidneys, and numerous other organs in your digestive system." He tilted his head. "You were dead, Rose Waters."

"Dead." The word left easily off of Rose Water's lips, but it didn't feel real. None of this felt real.

"Correct. Luckily for you, however, Thanos refused to give up. To preserve your body, he enclosed you in a cryto-freezer, and, later, a time-loop."

"He has... has the Time Stone?" Rose Waters whispered softly and lightly touched her forehead. A red cape. A red cape and a wizard and... and Rose Waters genuinely didn't know who he was, just that he was important.

And, for some strange reason, it only occurred to her then that she had little to no idea who she was or how any of this was possible. Even the name of Thanos didn't make her flinch, she sincerely didn't remember who that was, just that he was a man of importance.

"Yes, he got it three years ago."

Rose Waters sucked in a deep breathe and pressed her sweaty palms against her clean, white pants. The fabric hung loosely on her body, which was even frailer than before. A strong wind could easily blow the girl over.

"How did you... revive me?" Rose Waters whispered when the robot simply shrugged.

"It took some stitches and a lot of highly advanced technology." The robot paused as Rose Waters only nodded at his weak explanation before she stumbled to her feet and pressed her hands against the wall to keep her up.

"Three years..." Rose Waters whispered and shook her head. "I was... gone for three years..."

It was impossible for Rose Waters to comprehend so she forced herself to imagine it as if it was just a long slumber. That was all, not... not death.

Death was too permanent.

"Five years actually." The robot chipped in as Rose Waters widened her eyes and leaned over, wanting to throw up only to find that there weren't any contents in her stomach... and... and her stomach hurt like never before as she fell to her knees and let out a cry.

"Why is this happening?" Rose Waters screamed as she grabbed at her hair. She didn't know why, but she just knew instinctively that her hair felt longer than usual. "I... I don't know what you are. I don't know what a.. a Thanos is... and-"

"It's me." A deep voice stated as Rose Waters slowly turned to see a purple giant with a golden glove and a serious look in his eyes as an overpowering emotion overtook Rose Waters' body.

But it wasn't fear, not at all. It was... it was something else that was greater than fear and guilt and hatred.

Because it was a combination of all of it.

Rose Water's heart rate spiked exponentially as she fell against the wall and immediately spotted the hallway behind the large purple giant and tried to teleport there. But she didn't even make it half way, instead, her body crumpled to the ground barely a meter away from her original spot as she let out a cry and held her abdomen.

"Rosie." And Rose Waters didn't know why, but those words hurt her like no other as she shook her head back and forth, her body becoming incredibly small as she shook her head back and forth, expecting a punch or a scream or just something because... because she just did.

But instead, she was only brought to the purple giant's chest in an embrace that would've suffocated her if Rose Waters remembered how to breathe.

* * *

 **So... five years huh? Do you guys think Thanos did you-know-what?**

 **As a quick side note, I have to write an essay on Shakesphere's Macbeth and I had to quote a line, SO I LITERALLY HAD TO COUNT SIXTY LINES TO FIGURE OUT THE STUPID LINE NUMBER since i didn't have the book :( Also, I had to do that, like, I dunno, ten times... totally not annoying.**

 **To those of you guys that are still in (most likely online) school, how are you liking it?**

 **Thanks for all of your continuous support! It really does mean the world to me :)**

 **~Emily Jiang**


	28. Chapter 28

**Greater than Fear**

 _Twenty. Two. Years. Ago._

If there was one thing that absolutely fascinated Leah Walker, it was the Tesseract.

It had been in Shield's possession ever since a certain 'cat' vomited it up and ever since, only a very, very select few had been able to tinker around with its abilities, and one of those honoured to do so was Leah, a senior SHIELD agent who, while didn't work much in the esponiage part of the job, was a genius when it came to the Maths and Physics department. She only had one job: Make. It. Work.

And so that's what she did.

Day and night, Leah Walker tinkered around with the instrument, doing everything she could just to make something happen. Something had to happen, right? After all, if someone could make it do things in the 1940s, when who's to say that she couldn't make it work during this new millillium?

For years, Leah Walker stood by the cube's side day and night trying to figure out what made it tick. It became an obsession of hers, this cube of brilliant glass and blue speckles of light. Within the walls of SHIELD, Leah Walker became known as the crazy cube lady, jokingly of course, but Leah took that as a compliment. She loved everything about the beautiful object of light, from the crisp colours to its ability to, allegedly, run a jet.

Even when she became pregnant, Leah Walker didn't dare take a step away from the cube. She was too far deep into her reserach that practically nothing could pull her away. She was experimenting on it with it's teleportation capacities when she came into labour and, for the first time in forever, had to leave her little confined room to head to the hospital to give birth - one month too early.

Her child was a beautiful baby girl who possessed fair, almost porecelain skin and little tuffs of blond hair on her scalp, despite the fact that her Mother was Latino and her Father black. To the two of them, they almost thought that the girl wasn't theirs despite the fact that the two of them witnessed her birth and the Father knew surly well that his wife was well too occupied with her studies to even consider having an affair. She was theirs all right, despite her blond hair, pale skin and big, beautiful blue eyes.

She was brought home after a week at the hospital, who had to keep her in to ensure that the little premature child would be alright. However, despite the fact that she received the staff's constant adoration, the baby would never stop crying. It raged throughout the night and into the day, her little shrills full of unpleasant noise and uncomfort. Nobody knew why she cried so often and they did everything to try to fix it, but nothing would do it.

That is, nothing but her Leah Walker.

From the very moment that her Mother walked into the room, the girl's cries ceased and she would, at long last, fall asleep, shutting her blue orbs while being held in her Mother's arms. They called it a strong connection, that it was only in her mother's arms when the girl finally felt that she belonged.

That and because the radiation from the space stone still clung into Leah Walker's hair, skin, and clothes, it's power more than enough to sooth the little girl.

After being brought home, the girl eventually stopped throwing too harsh of tantrums and, for a while, everything was great.

That is, until it wasn't.

The baby was only a month old when they barged in, their prescence causing screams to fill up the once peaceful household. Both of the parents, despite being highly advanced SHIELD agents, had absolutely no way in holding their own against the small army of soldiers that quickly swarmed their home, their moves coming from out of their world and the weapons they brought in doing just the same. Within moments, both parents were neutralized and the being who seemed to be in charge made it's way towards the girl's crib.

The people who had raided their home were Bounty Hunters searching for the Space Stone, which, luckily for SHIELD, was hidden well below layers upon layers of concrete, making them unable to be found by mere scanners looking for the stone's signiture radiation.

But, unluckily for Leah Walker and her family, her penthouse apartment wasn't shielded so well from the radiation that her child emitted.

Of course, it came to a grand surprise to the agents that the baby was the source of the radiation that they had found, the energy seeming to just glow off of her. The baby had, of course, no clue that the strange new people brought into her home were intruders, and, at the sight of new faces, simply giggled and clapped her hands like how her parents loved for her to do.

One of the men suggested murdering the girl, stating that she probably swallowed the stone whole and that they could fish it out of her stomach or wherever it was lurking. But, the man who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation shook his head. Murdering adults, he could justify that, all adults probably did something bad in their lives. But a baby? That was a whole different story.

The small team discussed what to do among themselves for a little while when a small crew of SHIELD agents barged in from receiving an emergency SOS from their fallen comrades. After realizing that they were surrounded, the team quickly grabbed the girl and left the building and, later, the planet. SHIELD covered the story by stating that petty robbers had attacked the house, the level of knowledge of needing to know that aliens had invaded and taken a single child being classified on the highest level possible.

Not wanting to show up empty handed, the bounty hunters showed up to Thanos with the baby girl in their arms, her eyes bright with the entire universe seeming to be found within them. They had stated that the girl had an uncanny level of radiation associated with her, that she was bound to led him and his glorious army to the Space Stone if used right. That they were sorry for not being able to find the real Space Stone but still expected some level of compensation.

Half of the men were killed moments after their audience with the Mad Titan. A punishment for doing a job 'half-done'.

Thanos had thought about killing baby, but eventually decided against it. A mind in the prime to start being molded was perfect for him and, besides, he always needed another child or two to help with his vision.

When he realized that the baby could teleport, which happened one strange day years after he had first stumbled upon her, that was only a small bonus or two to add to her usefulness. It was long after he had decided to take her in and raise her to be one of the fiercest, most dangerous women in the universe.

And much, much after he decided to name her Rose Waters.

* * *

Some nights when Thanos was able to will himself to sleep, he would dream of the moment of a girl with brilliant blond hair, marvelous blue eyes, and the most fiercest blows of all time. In his dreams, he would watch her eyes widen into the size of dinner plates before her dreaded long fingers would snap. Then, before the Mad Titan knew what would hit him, he would be a good fifty meters away.

The next part would go in slow motion, forcing him to see it in every little horrifying shred of detail as a man with a strange haircut and a long, silver blade would stab this girl, the blade obviously being meant for the purple giant. It would enter her body and be seen through the other side and despite having three infinity stones on his hand, despite knowing what he had to do, despite having all the power in the world to stop it, he didn't. He couldn't.

He didn't know if what happened went by too fast or if he just decided against it, but he didn't stop the silver blade from entering his daughter's body, instantly bringing her down to her knees, her eyes briefly looking at him before glossing over before he would slam awake in cold sweat.

But most nights, he just wouldn't sleep.

* * *

"A lot has changed since you went to sleep." Thanos said and delicately poured Rose Waters a glass of water. She always liked water growing up, her lips rather having the essential liquid against her lips than any other concoction of chemicals he gave her. It was part of a secret little reason onto why he gave her her name.

Rose Waters was silent, her eyes looking glazed over as she stared at the ground underneath her feet. Her long blonde hair swung past her hips and her pinkish lips were chapped, but she didn't make a single sound.

"First things first, I received the Time Stone." He looked down at his gauntlet and admired the brilliant green stone on it. "It took a little bit of... haggling and persuasion, but I got it."

Rose Waters didn't know what he meant by persuasion and she didn't want to.

"Gamora... is dead." Rose Waters blinked.

She didn't even remember who that was.

"Which is how _this,_ " He gestured to the luminous orange gem that lay on his glove. "appeared into my possession."

"You still need the space stone." Rose Waters didn't know why she knew to say that, just that she did. Perhaps it was a force of habit of some sort.

A slight pause in the conversation as Thanos let out a heavy breath.

"Yes."

"Loki... he..." Rose Waters felt dizzy. She felt this compelling urge to help this man and she didn't know why. "He has it."

"No..." Thanos replied, his voice soft. He knew she didn't know any better, all that time in hypo-cryogenic freezers and time loops does indeed tamper with the human brain. "You do."

"Oh." Rose Waters replied before she stubly checked her pockets, which she didn't have. She then looked back up to the purple giant. "No I don't."

"Not physically on you, but somewhere deep inside of that mind of yours, you know where it is and you could grab it," He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."

Rose Waters blinked her wide blue eyes, her lips trembling. Her heartbeat skyrocketed and her muscles tensed as she waited for something, anything to happen.

"I-I'm sorry." Rose Waters choked out as her fingernails dug deeper into the metal stool she sat on. "I-I don't remember-"

She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the worst, but nothing came.

Which made it all even scarier.

"It's alright." Thanos responded before he placed a hand over hers.

Rose Waters took her hand away from his, her eyes refusing to blink as she shook her head back and forth. "It's not though, I... I don't know who you are but I... I'm scared. You're going to hurt me, I know you are so stop... stop pretending as if you aren't... There's voices in my head telling things that I don't understand. Stuff about... about stones and wizards with red capes and..." Rose Waters covered her mouth and choked out a sob.

"You need time to heal... and that's something that we have an abundance of." Thanos whispered as Rose Waters shook her head back and forth. Thanos slowly got up, he was a busy man, he shouldn't be spending so much time in one place. Even if it was for his beloved daughter.

"You just want the stone." The word barely left Rose's lips as she looked up at the Mad Titan, her eyes hooded and her lips trembling. "You want me to remember and give it to you."

Thanos didn't respond.

* * *

 **:)**


	29. Chapter 29

**The Accidental Escape**

It was only in her dreams when memories slowly reached the surface of Rose Waters' troubled mind.

In those dreams, Rose Waters would be in a strange room full of desks made out of shiny wood. Her hands would be gripping at a strange piece of wood that enclosed graphite not too tightly, because if she gripped it too tightly, she just knew that it would shatter. Her eyes would be observing a medium height women who would be pointing to a board the shade of an ugly green with white, strange powder pressed against it to create letters. Then her eyes would flicker away and she would, ever so casually, teleport the chalk right out of the teacher's hands and into her own right in the middle of her writing some answer on the board.

She knew that was she was doing was bad but she didn't care. The look on the teacher's face was absolutely hilarious to watch as she would wonder how in the world a piece of chalk just managed to disappear into thin air. For the next few minutes, the teacher would look upon the floor for the chalk, despite the fact that she and the rest of the class knew for a fact that nobody heard the chalk fall and break. Nobody saw it, but it was the only reason for this to be happening. The only logical one at least.

And then, out of nowhere, Rose Waters would be standing on the rooftop of a building, wind whipping past her clothes and hair flowing freely as she would watch a man encased with armour attack the supervillian of the week. She was close, so close to redemption. All she had to do was teleport to Iron Man and tell him about the upcoming doom and then... and then...

She would wake up in cold sweat immediately afterwards despite the fact that she didn't know why. This immense amount of guilt would encase her, squeezing her body until she felt like she couldn't even breathe. Nothing made sense.

One day after those troubled dreams of a simplier life in a city where buildings touched the sky, Rose Waters got out of her bed and stared at the large assortment of weapons that decorated her walls. With delicate hands, she picked up one that seemed to have the most amount of blood on it, proving that she must've used it, and welded it. The weight was familiar, yet strange, on her smooth palms. With a jolt, clumsy move, she tried to use it with her eyes closed, only causing an immense memory to travel its way to the surface.

A base. A robot with a brilliant yellow stone lodged in his head. A brilliant yellow stone that was calling her name over and over again and... and a feeling of power encasing her body as a brilliant blue cube was placed on her palm and-

When Rose Waters opened her eyes, she was there. In the base, the same one in which she held Vision hostage in. The one close to Mars, close to Earth.

Not like she remembered though. All she knew was that she had, somehow, teleported herself out of the her once comfortable room into a place that she only had a slight recollection over.

With frantic breaths, Rose Waters closed her eyes and concentrated on her room again. Her beautiful room with weapons on her wall and cold, steel floors and dim lighting and... and Rose Waters' mind wandered to that grand, beautiful city with skyscrapers that reached the sky, to the city in her dreams and when she opened her eyes once more, she was there.

But it wasn't anything like how she remembered.

The city was dark and hollow, no longer full of voice and laughter and noise and now... and now strangely empty. And now feeling lost of all sense of light and life and... it felt different. It was different and Rose Waters felt as if she was reason for it.

She timidly took a step forward and, almost purely from muscle memory, teleported to a building that had some mascot and the word Education littered all over it. It was empty, void of any life what so ever. She sucked in a deep breath and stumbled backwards, her voice caught in the back of her throat. Her fault, her fault, her fault, her-

She didn't have enough time to think another thought when strange, white fluid slammed over her body, forcing her to be pinned against the ground as she took in deep, frantic gulps of air, her eyes lining with tears.

"You!" A rough voice stated as hands grabbed at Rose Water's wrists. If she was teleporting away, he was coming with her. "What are-"

The face that was in front of her own was only vaguely familiar. A red mask with black webbing running down it, deep tears in it's fabric that revealed brown, long and unkept hair. She could only vaguely make out a more muscular build under his tight clothing and... and a single name whispered into her mind.

"Peter..." Rose Waters eyes widened even more and for some reason, even though his hands were grabbing at her wrists so tightly that blood stopped flowing to her hands, she knew that he wouldn't hurt him.

"Don't do that, don't pretend to be my friend!" Spiderman screamed and grabbed her wrists even tighter. "Where is he! Where's Thanos!"

At his aggressive attiude, Rose Waters choked back a sob and shook her head back and forth. "What happened?"

"You know damn well what happened-"

Rose Waters shut her eyes and shook her head as a flash of a memory of pure pain attacked her. Pain that hit her stomach and a man... Thor... he was staring into her eyes asking her why and... and it was all too much for her. This was all too much for her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Rose Waters whispered frantically as she hung her head down in shame. Her fault, her fault, her fault.

"Sorry isn't going to bring half the population back to life!" Peter Parker screamed. "It's not going to bring back Happy, Captain America, Aunt..." And now he was choking back a sob as Rose Waters shook her head microscopically.

"I'm sorry!" Rose Waters screamed and teleported them both so that they were out in the empty streets. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-I don't-"

"Get me to Thanos and then apologize!" Peter Parker screamed as Rose Waters sucked in a deep breathe.

"But then he'll kill you." She whispered ever so softly, knowing that deep in her heart that it was true.

"Then I'll finally be the rest of the other half of the world." Peter Parker hissed as Rose Waters' lips trembled before she teleported them both to a nearby bench so she could sit down.

"I can't let that happen." Rose Waters whispered and, with a plop, sat on the cold, metal bench. Her wrists were still being grabbed insanely harshly by Spiderman but she didn't care.

"It's the least you can do if you were really sorry-"

"Thanos would kill me too." Rose Waters whispered softly and looked downwards. "He would hate me."

She didn't know why but there was this animal instinct in her that craved his affection. She needed it.

"So, he's a monster!" Peter Parker yelled and released one of her wrists to point to the empty streets of New York. "He caused this, he killed half of-"

"The entire population." Rose Waters finished and, with her spare hand, moved her long, blonde hair out of her face. "I know, I know... I... You don't understand, Peter, there is a war going in my head... I can't do what you want me to do..."

With that, Peter Parker let out a groan and released her other wrist before punched a nearby wall, forcing the bricks to crumble apart before he whispered words underneath his breath.

"What?" Rose Waters whispered when Spiderman ripped off his mask, revealing a young adult with longer, lazily cut hair and fierce eyes that screamed of hurting more than she may ever know.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I EVER THOUGHT YOU WERE GOOD!"

But for some reason, that didn't enrage Rose Waters at all. For some reason, all it did was make her curl her legs to her chest. For some reason, all it did was make her press her head against her legs before Peter Parker collasped next to her. Her eyes were closed shut and, out of nowhere, Peter Parker lightly grabbed her hand.

"I'm sorry." Peter Parker whispered and Rose Waters didn't know if he was touching her because he was genuinely sorry or because he didn't want her to teleport away. "I... I just need to get them back..."

Memories swarmed Rose's mind, suppressed ones that never truly made it to the surface. She saw training and blood and sweat and tears and love and hate and...

And for some strange reason, everything felt clear to her. Too clear.

"Wait... the space stone!" Peter Parker stated and lightly, tenderly grabbed her face as a million and a half memories sunk into her brain. She didn't know why now was the time when it was all coming back to her, just that it was. "You... you have it! You can bring it back and-"

"THANOS!" Rose Waters screamed and slapped Peter Parker's face, forcing him to recoil. "THANOS, GIVE IT UP!"

And, just like that, New York City disippated before her, everything from Peter Parker to the school fading away revealing Rose Waters to be standing in her old weight room and Thanos standing by the door, revealing a reality stone glowing from his glove.

"What gave it up?" He questioned as Rose Waters shook her head back and forth.

"You never loved me." She whispered and took a step forward. Her abdominal muscles burned with pain and her hands felt shaky. "You... you never wanted a life with me."

"Of course I did, Rosie, don't-"

"That's the mind stone talking." Rose Waters cut in, her eyes watering. "You figured out what I wanted, you manipulated me and you... you used me! You never call me Rosie, you used that damn stone to figure out how to make me tick... that... that I wanted your approval and-"

Rose Waters choked back a sob as Thanos took a step forward, her facial features serious.

"Rose Waters," His voice was low and horrifyingly dark as Rose Waters fought the urge to recoil.

"It hasn't been five years has it." She glanced briefly at his gauntlet and at how there was no green or orange stone that glowed on his glove. Just the Power, Mind and Reality. "I don't even think it's been a week."

"I know you know where the Tesseract is, Rose Waters." He hissed as Rose Water's lips trembled.

"Does saving you mean anything to you? I took a fucking bullet for you, Thanos and-"

"Am I not repaying you by allowing you to live?" Thanos replied, a chuckle leaving his lips. "Rose Waters, how do you think that you're still standing here right now? Technology didn't save you,"

He briefly moved the gauntlet and blood began to flow down Rose's abdominal as she yelled in pain and struggled to breathe. She couldn't breathe, everything was punctured, everything was broken and-

He clenched his fist once more, allowing her organs to be closed and healed all from the work of the reality stone.

" _I am keeping you alive."_ Thanos hissed and clenched his fist. "The least you can do in return is give me what I wanted for ever too long."

* * *

 **:O**


End file.
